The
Healthy Way to Sit and Exercise at the Same Time
By Paul Chek, HHP, NMT
Founder, C.H.E.K. Institute
Did you
know that low back pain is the most common orthopedic disorder
in the world? Amazingly, one of the major causes of back pain
is sitting. For many of you, this is quite a problem because
today, more people work seated than any other position. Typically,
people get up and sit to eat, sit to drive to work, sit at
work, sit on the drive home, sit to eat dinner and sit in
front of a TV until they go to bed. That's a lot of sitting!
Do we have some
strange affinity for chairs? It would appear so, yet as I
will show you, this affinity is misguided.
While it's quite
likely back pain was a problem even before chairs were invented,
the arrival of the chair in our lives certainly did nothing
but increase the incidence of back pain. This was demonstrated
by Dr. Harry Fahrni who studied the Bihl tribe of India. The
Bihl didn't use chairs and, at the time of Fahrni's visit,
were very primitive. Dr. Fahrni had X-rays taken of the lumbar
spines of 450 Bihl tribesmen ranging in age from 15-44. He
then took a comparable series of X-rays of heavy laborers
in Sweden and an additional series of X-rays of light workers
in San Francisco.
Fahrni's studies
only confirmed what he knew from experience: The more active
Bihl who didn't use chairs had healthier spines than other
groups (see Figure 1 for images of healthy
and degenerative spines). He found heavy laborers in Sweden
had a high incidence of lumbar disc narrowing of 80 percent
by age 55. Light workers showed an incidence of 35 percent
narrowing by the same age. In stark contrast, the images of
the primitive Bihl tribesmen showed an incidence of only 9
percent disc narrowing. 1
Dr. Fahrni's findings
show avoiding chairs and having an active lifestyle may be
significant contributions to maintenance of a healthy spine.
However, being active alone is not enough to avoid back problems.
From
a movement perspective, there is no doubt both the light workers
in San Francisco and the heavy workers in Sweden were active,
so what may account for the difference there? My clinical
experience suggests, in the heavy workers, the patterns of
movement would be quite repetitious while the light workers
may simply not have gotten enough exercise.
Among
the Bihl tribesmen and women, the activities of hunting and
gathering would ensure adequate movement as well as a myriad
of movement patterns. Such consistent, dynamic activity would
serve to pump fluids through the spinal discs, keeping them
well nourished. The Swedish and American participants also
came from industrialized nations where sitting is commonplace.
However,
when we squat the way native tribesmen do (Figure
3), the torso is supported by the thighs, allowing relaxation
and decompression of the spinal column, which can only keep
it well hydrated and healthy (Figure
4).
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