Our battle to achieve and then maintain fitness in the face of the disorder detailed last time is, unfortunately, not the full story.
It assumed the contributing factor to our decay, decline and deterioration was time, only. But, of course, it isn’t.
Imagine the athlete, or actor in a training camp with everything purposed towards that one training end. Well, my life ain’t like that and nor is yours, I’m guessing, so we don’t simply accrue benefits cumulatively from one training session to the next.
From a 168-hour week, if we can assume—and we can’t— a minimum effective dose of exercise we still have another 165 hours to contend with during which, much of what we do is only helping time along.
At best it’s a case of two steps forward and one back, but more often we’re building sandcastles well below the high tide line.
To break this down let’s consider the body at work, rest and, we’ll begin with:
PLAY
For sake of brevity, let’s say whatever you do here that demands some form of movement is great. If we’re more in boardgame territory, that too is fine if you tick the requisite movement boxes in the other two departments bearing in mind that yes, any movement is good, but too little is terrible.
More notably, because unlike our athlete or actor above you don’t get to do this for a job — and nor do I— we’re including training in this category. And the purpose of training for our general population is both to offset the problems created by our work, rest and play and to prepare us for them.
As such, your training must address, in order of importance, your needs, weaknesses and gaps. These will often overlap but rarely are they even considered much less, determining your training.
You’ll note I didn’t mention anything about doing what you love. And this is not because you can’t or shouldn’t come to love training— yes, really— but because, as good a rule of thumb as you’ll find in fitness, most of your problems will be traced back to preference. It’s our preferences that create those needs, weaknesses and gaps.
And when you’re not addressing those, your fitness efforts are little more than sandcastle decoration. Indeed, this is where you’ll find most of the fitness industry. Well below the high tide mark, selling you another bucket and spade and encouraging you to build it bigger and better this time.
But at least you can do something about it, whereas with:
WORK
Whether you’re on your feet all day or night doing the rounds of the wards, stuck in a cubicle or on the tools, your job will largely decide your level of activity and your position—sitting or standing—and will often further demand other repetitive movements like using a mouse, a knife, a jackhammer or the like.
In every case, it won’t provide you with too much opportunity to take care of your body and so we’re not going to worry too much about it, but we are going to do what we can.
Certainly, you should avail yourself of ergonomic aids where possible on the proviso these encourage restorative, functional positions and not comfort, so a vertical mouse and a kneeling chair or Swiss ball are good options but a comfier chair is not.
You can further take advantage of the small things that go a long way to safeguarding your physical well-being. Framing it like that is a good start, in the same light as any other protective measure. You’d don a pair of safety goggles or a mask to protect your short and long-term health, right?
Tell me the difference. I’ll wait.
I’m not talking about getting sweaty, just mini-breaks for stretching or mobility, even just standing up and walking around.
Nevertheless, I’m only too familiar with the dismal (>5%) rate of uptake when these measures are suggested. And the resulting 100% continued stiffness and pain. And bitching about it.
You can find a few seconds here and there to address the work-related aches and pains that will surely become chronic problems. Or you can take a good 90 minutes out of your work day every 6 months to go and see a physio, chiro or osteo about it instead.
If you don’t already have a list of rehab drills, spend just 20 mins one weekend learning a few of them taking careful note of all relevant cues to be sure you’re doing them correctly and pick 1 or 2 that make a difference. Then you’ll have to set a reminder to do them at work and do them until it becomes second nature and the pain and stiffness that was blighting your work day and broader life is no longer a factor.
And yes that will absolutely be a pain in the arse. Until you compare it to a hip replacement.
Bringing us to the best opportunity to swing things in our favour.
REST
It is only stating the obvious to say that your quality and quantity of both sleep and food have the greatest bearing on your ability to recover, adapt and go again. But you’ll be pleased to know that today I’m leaving them well alone on the proviso that nothing described here— or anything else— will substitute for them.
Inactivity is the problem, but as Phillip Beach writes in Muscles and Meridians, “movement and rest are flip sides of the same coin” and we must recognise the deep relationship between our movement and rest patterns. By doing so we can most easily offset the problems of inactivity by going no further than the floor. And even remaining inactive.
Groundwork has long been part of the Leftfield game. Across a variety of disciplines and philosophies— and in every domain, not only fitness— you’ll always find points of convergence. Signposts of the way. I recently completed a GOATA certification and while it offered key points of difference and expansion to models like Original Strength and FMS, it all begins in the same place. And for all the same reasons.
But these are models more aligned with training, the starting point here is one purely of rest and using the ground to keep our system tuned — or retuning. To reinforce positions and shapes that reflect good movement instead of their opposites.
If you follow the advice above and seek out corrective drills for wrist or shoulder pain to namecheck a couple of near-certainties, you’ll realise these movements are just reversals of the repetitive problem-causing movement. Not surprisingly your joints respond favourably to being used through a full range of motion in every available direction. Who’d have thunk it?
But the activities we typically choose in our downtime don’t refresh us and often leave us worse off with any feeling of relief only coming only through exposure to a different negative. But these ground resting positions are also the reversal of problematic postures and positions, and so are, in the most literal sense:
HOW TO UNWIND
Seiza —sitting on your legs folded underneath with a fist width between your knees and your heels turned out.
Samurai —as above but with your toes curled under.
Cross-legged
Long Sit— legs straight in front.
Each has us resting in a (bow or corner) shape that reinforces optimal movement. Sitting in a chair, by contrast, optimises you to move backwards—the same as how you’d position yourself for a tug-of-war. When you spend all your time in reverse gear it’s going to hurt when you move forwards.
Sitting position = reverse gear.
Even getting down to and back off the ground might be challenging. When you start, chances are none of these positions are going to be pleasant. That’s okay. Make it easy. Don’t torture yourself. It’s not only unnecessary it makes next time less likely - and that’s all you’re trying to do: ensure you’ll do it again tomorrow.
Develop control, comfort and endurance in each position but, for context, to begin with, we’re talking seconds. Frequency is the key. Try to return to these 3-5 times/day—just taking little sips— but at least once daily. Use your hands, cushions or other support to disperse pressure and keep switching from one position to the next — the best position is the next one.
You’ll get near immediate subjective proof of this being a good idea. You will feel better. You’ll get objective proof within a couple of weeks and as ever, you need take nothing on faith from Leftfield.
Remember that any struggle and discomfort experienced is the opposite of a disqualifier and correlates exactly to how much you need this. The pressure and discomfort you’re feeling is, in fact the decompression of your joints giving them the space to position themselves correctly to transfer and absorb force in movement.
Leftfield Training always employs the exercises and drills that offer an outsized benefit relative to effort and there’s a further shorter list that offer a what-the-hell unexplainable effect. The few minutes on the floor every day that can undo a lifetime of poor habits puts all these others in the shade. If that’s not encouraging enough for you, don’t forget that exercise is as good as it gets.
Do this consistently and you’ll notice your aches and pains are soon confined to the few minutes of adjustment in these resting positions. Instead of all the time. That’s the tradeoff. There is no need to foam roll and mobilise and yada yada yada if you spend just a fraction of your time resting in non problematic postures.
And if you don’t, then there isn’t enough foam rolling you can do that will combat it.
3-BODY SOLUTION
Most people struggle to sit on the ground only because they never do. It’s a vicious cycle and you pay the price with stiffness, aches and pains, less mobility, poor posture, and poorer movement, all of which only lead to even nastier consequences. By contrast to any other fitness or health intervention, it takes next to nothing to reverse the cycle, and by resting in these positions you turn being sedentary into a positive.
And you can make it better still. I use it to limit other less-than useful activities and I only check email 3 times a day for 5-10 mins, on the ground.
And if you want a near-perfect win-win, decide you’ll only use social media on the ground and it will serve as an incentive to get down there and your doom scrolling will be sharply curtailed.
Even with everything pulling in the same direction, eliciting a desired training effect demands a high degree of well-directed effort. It’s hard enough at it is without our efforts erased not by injury, illness or any other anomaly, but by life.
If we can get work, rest and play all helping to move the needle our progress is assured.
So rest well
Enjoy your weekend.
- OLI
I always complain about not having ease of mobility when getting off the ground and I realised that to get to that place of ease just requires a determined change in habits / and or, a compleiing reason to change. For me, it is about securing a healthy flexible and strong body to lead me towards old age.
Yeah that's it Manju. The more time you spend on the ground—without torturing yourself—the better. Keep it up!