Skip to main content

A Simple Stretch

My job requires me to sit a lot. It's not a huge inconvenience or anything, but it's a well-known risk of my profession that it can lead to back pain and carpal tunnel. It's just one of those things that I have to watch out for.

For the most part, it's not a huge deal, especially since I do push ups every hour during the work day. Getting up at least once per hour helps to break up the long periods of sitting in the same position, so the longest amount of time that I'm seated in the same position is about an hour. I hadn't intended those push ups to be a posture and ergonomic thing, but I'll happily take the side effects.

Still, there's only so much that a quick break from sitting can do, so I started looking into ways to tweak my posture. I mean, why not be proactive about stretches and exercises to try to prevent harm? What's the worst that can happen? I have a stronger back?

As it just so happens, I found a YouTuber that seems to have some good suggestions on general fitness recently, so I looked up his videos to see if he had anything for posture. As it turned out, he did. Now, I'll mention that I saw his stuff referenced on a random Reddit thread, and the feedback was overwhelmingly favorable. Lots of people seemed to appreciate his positive vibe and the fact that he had legitimately useful tips. So, I figured I'd give it a go.

One of the first things he suggested was an exercise where you stand with your back to the wall and lift your arms. It sounds really simple, but he suggested it as a first step to try to strengthen your back muscles. So, I started there. If it was as easy as it sounded, then I'd just move on to the next exercise. If not, well, I knew what to work on.

It hurt.

You know how some people say the first time they do yoga it hurts like hell because they're working muscles in new ways? Yeah, it was like that. I stood there, with my back to the wall, and it was surprisingly difficult to get my hands up. I didn't want to cheat by arching my back, so I basically felt those muscles in my back protest from being used in ways they hadn't been before.

On the one hand, it is disappointing to realize that those particular muscles need that much work. However, the flip side of that is that I can feel the progress because I'm in the earlier stages of strengthening those muscles. About a week later, I could actually start to feel when my shoulders started to slouch forward. It's kind of cool to literally be able to feel the progress.

That said, you better believe I'm going to keep doing this stretch. I'm not trying to turn a blind eye now that I know that my upper back needs work and how to fix it.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

New York City Trip (Day 3)

By the third day of the trip, I was tired enough from the previous day's adventures/subway rides that I felt like sleeping in. And sleep in I did. I think I woke up at something like 11:30 or noon. Of course, that meant that a later start to the day, which started the vicious cycle all over again. By the time we rolled into Manhattan, it was about two in the afternoon. I had tentatively set aside Sunday to see something on Broadway, so we headed over to the tkts booth for discount tickets. There were actually various 3PM options, and after mulling our options, we figured it'd be a good idea to catch one of those. We settled on The Toxic Avenger , which was actually an off-Broadway option. However, we hadn't eaten yet, and the show started about 15 minutes after we got our tickets. Enter the food carts. There happened to be one right outside the theater, and the guy charged a little bit of a premium for the convenience. Still, I was hungry, and I had yet to try...
1 comment
Read more

Sick Days 2

I've mentioned before that getting sick is a source of amusement for me, largely because of the kids and the reactions I get from people at work. Well, it looks like I underestimated just how much laughter illness can cause. Yup, the whole process of getting sick managed to generate some (mild) amusement. First of all, my brother got a pretty bad case of strep throat, so he had to miss some time at work. He is also around kids quite a bit, so it's not uncommon for one of those "vectors of infection" he works with to get him sick in some way, shape, or form. In this case, he managed to contract a case of strep throat. His supervisor, however, was far more concerned about the work schedule than the fact that he had a really high fever and could not keep himself out of bed. She said she was going to make him come in later that day (to which he roughly said, "you're not understanding. I cannot come in to work today."), and then she insisted on a doctor...
Post a Comment
Read more

Where Do I Go?

As the days of COVID-19 are dragging on, we are having to make more adjustments to our usual routines. Some of these changes are so mundane that I haven't mentioned them at all in this blog, while others have lead to some pretty funny anecdotes . That's probably par for the course, since you wouldn't expect a global pandemic to be all giggles. As it turns out, however, not all of the anecdotes happen to us directly. Having to socially distance and remotely do things has actually led to at least one goofy episode that we found out from afar. You see, it was our niece's birthday recently, but we couldn't visit her because of the aforementioned social distancing. So, we figured we'd ship her a present and call her on her birthday. We couldn't be there in person, but we could still wish her well and try to make her feel special on her birthday. Given that shipping times have been erratic the last few months, we ordered the present with plenty of time, and it arr...
Post a Comment
Read more