Get off your ass and work!

I'm sure by now if your a member of the Garage Gym you've noticed that we rarely do any type of exercise sitting down or lying down. Most people spend their days sitting down in front of a computer, driving to and from work, etc. The effects of prolonged sitting causes major problems and weakness to the glutes(butt muscles), spinal erectors (lower back muscles), quads (the muscles on the front of your thighs) , and scapula stabilizers (the muscles that hold your shoulders up and backward).

Seated posture causes the hip flexor muscles to shorten, so will exercising seated on the bike in spinning class. Seated posture will cause the muscles of the upper back to become long and weak while the chest muscle get short and tight. If you haven't figured it out yet prolonged sitting and hunching forward whilst sitting is a major contributing factor to lower back pain.

Every time a client tells me that he or she has back problems I ask them if they had an injury. Most clients response is the same. "Yeah I hurt my back in the gym" or "I hurt my back picking up my child" etc. Rarely, do they tell me that they suffered some type of lower back/spin injury due to a traumatic accident. What does this tell you?

So, if prolonged sitting is bad for you why do they make exercise machines that have you sitting down or lying down? I believe the reason behind that is to make the exercise easier and the person more comfortable. What I never understood is if we're going to the gym to get healthier and improve our level of fitness why do we need to be comfortable? I mean heck, shouldn't exercise be challenging and hard or am I missing something?

Most of the core muscle that become weak from prolonged sitting are located in the back of your body so since they are not the flashy muscles they often get ignored by most exercise programs. At Garage Gym I make sure that these critical muscles and stabilizers are not ignored. I accomplish this by designing programs that include squatting with or without weight over seated leg presses and leg extensions which have you sitting down, dead lifting over lying leg curls, standing military press and standing up-right rows over the seated version of these movements, ring dips and good old fashioned push-ups over bench pressing, standing bent over rows and pull-ups over seated lat pull downs.

We spend a great time of our day sitting down so get up get off your ass and work hard your body will thank you for it.