Healthyplug

Introduction We live in a time where sitting takes up the majority of our day, but could sitting too long be slowly crippling our bodies? The modern lifestyle in nowadays requires working machines, which do much of the people’s work, eliminating the need for manual labour. Working in the office by using those machines force people to sit there for eight or more hours a day. The Internal Medicine shows that the average person spends more than half of his/her waking hours in an inactive state. Those persons are commuting to and from work, sitting at a computer, watching TV, etc). Overview Besides the obvious benefits of the modern technology, such as consolidating our efforts, getting more done in less time, and connecting us to others at lightning speeds, it has many disadvantages, as well. The sedentary position for prolonged periods of time can cause problems such as poor posture, chronic back pain, and deadly diseases such as heart disease, obesity and diabetes. Ev...

I got asked by my friend, Chris, "How do your hip flexors affect your back?" When you are looking at the hip flexors, there are two parts. One of your quadriceps is part of your hip flexors which is helping you when it comes to hip movement and then also deep inner pelvis connected to your spine is another set of hip flexors. The two are the rectus femoris which is in the quadriceps and psoas and iliacus in the deep inner pelvis. I will get Orsy to show you what happens in your low back. Looking from the side if we are at a good posture, our low back is in a good position. But if hip flexors are tight, it changes that curve in your lower back. It tilts that pelvis forward and increases that curve in the lower back. And when we lose or change that curve in the lower back which puts you at greater risk when it comes to back injury and pain. We want to make sure that those hip flexors have good flexibility and good movement especially if you d...

A common thing that I hear from clients is that they are not able to do the stretch because they cant kneel down. So, kneeling bothers them. They may have osteoarthritis in their knee joint or they have patellofemoral pain syndrome hence, they cant kneel on their knee cap. So these are variations that they can do to get an effective hip flexor stretch without kneeling down. Also, its a great example of a hip flexor stretch that you can do easily at work, especially if your work involves a lot of sitting. Find a chair and sit on the edge of the chair. Here I am just using a park bench. What I will do is sit at the end of the park bench or the chair. I've got half of my body, the left side of my body sitting and my left leg is out front. I am going to bring my right knee back. So I am almost in that 90-90 position but I am not kneeling down. I am going to tighten up my abdominal area and that will maintain the curve in my back and lock the pelvis. And then, I can bring my...

I wanted to go through 3 stretches that you can do to help fix that anterior tilt. #1 – 90-90 Hip Flexor Stretch I will get Orsy to move down to the mat and move into a 90 - 90 position. Front leg is at 90 degrees, the back leg is at 90 and you tightening up your abdominal area. Then, move your hips forward looking and look for a stretch in front of the hip. You will feel the stretch in the front of your hip and the thigh. You are looking for a light stretch. You are not trying to rip the muscle apart. Hold that for about 20 to 30 seconds going twice on each side alternating. #2 - Side Lying Quad Stretch Orsy is lying on her side bringing the heel towards the seat. Then bringing that thigh back a little bit in order to intensify the stretch in the front of the thigh and the front of the hip. You are holding for 20 seconds light stretch and you will do it twice on each side alternating. #3 - Deep Squat Stretch I will get Orsy to stand up...