Why Do I Ache?

Moving into week 7 of social-distancing! It's amazing how we can adapt. Changes become normalized, new routines get established, new expectations take hold. It still may be challenging at times, but we are resilient and strong.

The recurring theme I'm hearing from everyone after a month and a half of working from home is that they are aching. For the majority of clients, all the little aches and pains are flaring up, some in more pain than others, some feeling an exacerbation of old injuries recurring, and others feeling new achy sensations they haven't dealt with previously.

So why is this happening and how can we try to change it?

Normally, we might go to our favorite workout class, chiropractor, or massage therapist when these aches flare up, but these are all closed at the moment. So what can we do to help ourselves during this time?

The main issues are 1.sitting more, 2.changing exercise routines, and 3.changing other activities we're doing in this new work-from-home situation. While it's good to adapt to new routines, changes take time for our bodies to get used to, and sometimes this takes longer than our mental state does to adapt to these changes. So while we may think we've settled into this new situation, our bodies are still taking time to adapt.

1. First of all, we are all working from home, so this increases the amount of sitting. Working from home has eliminated walking to our colleague's office to discuss an issue, walking across the parking lot to our car, and walking with friends to the local coffee shop. These small walks throughout the day do add up, giving the body time to move and activate.

• Our main issue for feeling stiff, achy, and sore is being sedentary. The main goal is to not be seated for an extended amount of time, but also not to be standing for an extreme amount of time. Our real goal is to get movement in the body, to constantly be changing positions throughout the day.

• Most importantly, stand up every hour for a few minutes. In between video meetings and calls, stand up and stretch. Find any way to add small bouts of movement into your day.

• When seated at the desk, get up from desk, walk to get water, walk to the bathroom and take an extra loop around the room to get back to the desk, standing marches at the desk while you take a meeting call. Doing exercises at the desk are good not only to just get movement into the body, but to get the opposite movement of typically how you spend time at the desk. Just get any movement, but also try to make that movement oppose the body position from what you were doing the past few hours.

• **Desk exercise routine listed below

• What's great about a standing desk if you can get one, is you can sit on a stool, you can change that to standing, and the real benefit, you can move around while you're standing at your desk, sway side to side, shifting foot to foot. Change positions how you're sitting, change from sitting to standing, and change positions how you're standing. Again, it's the sedentary behaviors that create negative effects for us, not simply sitting that is bad.

2. Secondly, many people have altered their workout routines. This is might be because the gym they usually used is closed, the studio classes are shut down, their personal trainer can't train them, or maybe they work out at their office. With everything closed people are adapting to a changed exercise routine as well.

• Definitely keep exercising, but slowly adapt to your new workouts. Give yourself time to be able to change your workout from the gym to the road. Even if you're used to running miles on the treadmill, running on the road changes how the body is working.

• Take a few days in between similar workouts to give the body time to adapt, to reduce the possibility of overuse injury

• Remember recovery days for stretching, foam rolling, and gentle movement

• Ice afterward if you feel pain

• Lift less weight at first if you're using household items. Since these items aren't normally used for workouts the weight is distributed unevenly and is more challenging to hold

3. Third, we might be doing different activities that create a range of different issues that include sitting more watching tv marathons, helping kids with homework; Looking down more reading books, drawing, writing; Laying down more playing with the dogs or kids, taking naps on the couch, lounging in the yard; Leaning forward more doing many miscellaneous chores, reaching to organize the closets, folding the laundry, cleaning in high places, and moving big furniture.

• While doing these different seated activities take time to stand up and look up.

• Focus the eyes 20 feet away for 20 seconds every 20 minutes

• While seated, make your space at your desk or couch more ergonomic with lumbar support, place your book or computer at shoulder height, feet on the floor, and elbows at a natural bend, and take time to stand up out of it even if it's "perfectly" ergonomic

• Lumbar support is crucial. You can buy supports online on Amazon or OPTP. Search for McKenzie lumbar roll, or McGill lumbar pillow. If you don't want to buy one, roll up a big bath towel into a tube shape to stick behind your lower back. This maintains the natural curve of the low spine while seated.

• After doing chores all day make sure to stretch and move the body in the opposite direction than the activities were in

• ** You can use the same stretches listed below in desk exercises

All of these changes in positions and habits create repetitive stress on the body especially when it’s unaccustomed, and can aggravate old symptoms or create mild new strains.

A one-minute break every hour will increase productivity, and decrease pain and stiffness.

Do whatever feels good, do what moves you. The key is getting those movement breaks, giving the mind a moment to rest, giving the body a moment to be active.

Back pain often follows from:

· Sitting for a long time

· Standing for a long time

· Bending for a long period or over and over (like when doing chores)

· Lifting heavy objects

· Lying down or sleeping in an awkward position

**Simple at the desk routine to move**

1. Sunrise Salutes

2. Banded Pull Aparts

3. Sit to Stand Squats

4. Seated cat/cow

5. Seated Neck Rolls

6. Seated Side Bends

7. Seated Trunk Rotations

8. Seated windmills

9. Seated Figure 4 stretch

10. Standing calf raises (not shown)

11. Standing hip flexor stretch