We offer a lot of treatments at triyoga, from the familiar to the more alternative. Treatments Week gives you the opportunity to explore what we have on offer, helping you find the treatments that best suit your needs. Join us for treatment tasters from 17 – 23 October.
In today’s business world, many of us are enlisted into the 8-5 office working cycle and bound to sitting at a desk for the majority of this time. While this is socially the norm, it is not the ideal situation for our bodies. While at first glance ‘sitting all day’ may not seem like a physically demanding past time compared to manual labours, it does in fact require high level endurance of specific muscle groups. If these endurance levels are not met, it can lead to the annoying (to severe) aches, pains, stiffness and headaches over time.
In our bodies, there are 2 kinds of muscle groups, namely “global” and “local”. The first of which is the one we tend to perceive most. These muscles are big, bulky and strong to produce great amounts of force in multiple functions. Global muscles are the prime movers that we use for lifting, running and ‘hard work’, then they take a break before repeating their action. In the ‘break’, the local muscles take control. This group of muscles are small, fine and enduring to control specific movements and assist function. These are the ones that need to be active all day, every day to keep our body upright.
Our body, by design, is intended to be moving and ‘on the go’ throughout the day which reinforces training of the global and local muscles in an appropriate balance. When we are sitting in one position for a significant portion of the day, these local muscles often don’t have the strength and endurance to last for such a long time and we are forced to rely on the global muscles as a plan B. This is when you start to sink into slouching postures and feel aches and pains – as these muscles aren’t designed to be used in a static way.
The remedy of these insidious effects is to maintain dynamic and gentle movement throughout the day as much as possible, in order to break up the monotony of sitting and to balance the use of muscles appropriately. This can be done by shifting positions from sitting to standing, lounging (with appropriate back support) and performing the “desk stretch” (detailed below) periodically throughout the day.
Taking strategic posture breaks – for example: getting up to make a cup of tea or walking outside to eat lunch – are also good little ways to keep the body gently moving. Ideally outside of work times, we should participate in forms of vigorous exercise (which also greatly reduces the risk of heart disease) and train the postural muscles with forms of Pilates or yoga a number of times a week, to further strengthen both of the muscle groups and to ensure we maintain the strength and endurance to perform everyday activities with full function.
The desk stretch:
– With hands on back of head, pull gently upwards, with a light chin tuck
– Stand up
– Stretch arms over head
– Pull on wrist with a slight side bend to the opposite side
– Lower arms down sideways
– Roll shoulders backwards
– Sit back down
– Reach (and look) around to the back of the chair
Jake works with Soho Physiotherapy, which aims to help patients return to an active life while maintaining the highest standard of clinical practice. They have expertise in a diverse range of skills which means expert, professional assessment and treatment advice on aches and pains, injuries, rehabilitation programmes and advice on what to do to prevent the problems from coming back. Soho Physiotherapy operates within the private sector, for orthopaedic surgeons, insurance companies and individuals.
Jake is an associate of SohoPhysiotherapy and works at triyoga Camden + Soho. For his schedule and more information, please click here.
Tasters fill up fast – book now by calling camden on 020 7483 3344, soho on 020 3362 3355 or chelsea on 020 3362 366. See the full list of available therapists for Treatments Week here.
