Avoid sitting on your butt

Dr Puneet Girdhar

Sitting for long hours daily can be harmful for our overall health, adversely affecting our bones and back joints. Those having desk jobs usually sit for long hours, which puts their bones, joints and spine at risk and harms neck, shoulder, hip and back muscles. Also, prolonged sitting can also increase the risk of cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, back problems and other associated risks.

Today’s work environment requires long working hours. Besides, most of us are hooked to social media. Add this screen time to a sedentary lifestyle and it only compounds the risks of various medical ailments.

Here are some basic exercises that can check the damage caused by prolonged sitting and can help in overcoming its bad effects.

Sitting affects hip joints and bones: If you sit for too long, you can experience pain in the hip region, as sitting causes hip flexors to shorten. There are several exercises which can reverse this pain. These include lunges, fire hydrants and squats. A good leg workout and a good amount of stretching can help reverse the ill effects of prolonged sitting.

Stiffness in neck and shoulders: Hunching your back and craning your neck to look down at computer screen, laptop and phone can cause stiffness and pain in the neck and shoulder joints. To reverse the effects of stiffness, perform these exercise regularly — rows (any variation), dumbbell shrugs, push-ups and high planks. These moves can strengthen muscles and prevent muscle imbalance, strains and soreness.

Core strength and correct posture: Most of us slouch and do not maintain a proper sitting posture. Do exercises that strengthen your midsection muscles, help build your core strength and also improve posture. Performing planks, side planks, flutter kicks and V-ups regularly will strengthen your core muscles.

Slouching puts pressure on spine: Our spine contains stacked discs that are meant to stretch and expand. While doing so, these absorb blood and nutrients required for keeping the spine healthy. But if we do not move our spine and surrounding tissues, it will not function properly, causing a herniated disk in some cases. To reverse the bad affects of slouching, include exercises like bridge, plank and those that work the core area. These exercises will benefit your glute muscles, abs as well as well as spine.

It can make leg and glute muscles weak: Glute and leg muscles like hamstrings, inner thighs, quads, etc. get affected when sitting for long with zero movement. Add it to a sedentary lifestyle and it could decrease muscle mass and cause loss of overall strength. It is important to give your legs and glutes much needed attention after a long sitting day job. These exercises which can reverse the bad effect include squats, lunges and bridges, as these target and activate the major muscle groups.

By including these exercises in our daily workout routine, we can minimise the harmful effects of prolonged sitting hours.

— The writer is director, orthopaedics spine surgery, BLK Super Speciality Hospital, New Delhi