You Can't Out Train Bad Habits
Have you ever heard the saying “You can’t out train a bad diet?” I personally say it all the time. If we aren’t mindful of our diet, all the good work we do at the gym or outside could be hidden by our lack of caloric or nutritional accountability. But really, for true wellness, it goes much deeper than what you do or don’t eat. It’s about little and big details of your daily life from how you walk to how you sleep, sit or even communicate. If there is something in your life you don’t like, the new year is approaching and this is a great time to look at what you can do to help yourself. Change a daily habit, and you just might change your life.
Do you have back pain and never had an injury that can take credit for it or constant neck pain that your friends and family say is from the weight of the world you carry on your shoulders? In our current American culture most back and neck pain can be summed up by one common flaw that most of us have. Bad posture. Can’t deny it can you? You probably also think I’m wrong, but I’m most likely not. Not just your sitting posture, but your standing posture, computer posture, studying posture, work posture, getting dressed posture, eating posture, on the phone posture, on the potty posture, texting posture… I could go on forever. Many modern day conveniences have led to aches and pains. It seems counterintuitive to try and make life easier and end up unhealthy. The old adage about there not being any real shortcuts seems to always ring true.
The most prevalent pain I hear about is low back pain. As a physical trainer, it is out of my scope to diagnose so once we have been cleared by medical I ask my clients to do a couple of simple tasks. I might ask them to pretend to tie their shoe, pick something up off the floor or sit on the floor and stand back up again. It is immediately evident if their daily postural habits could be a contributing factor in their pain. Just because a movement doesn’t hurt at the time doesn’t mean it isn’t causing a problem. If you continuously round your back during daily activities, it isn’t if but when will the back pain begin. This doesn’t mean that all back pain is caused by poor posture, but I have never seen a case where daily compression of the lumbar spine hasn’t made whatever is going on worse. The easiest fix is to learn the hip hinge. To get your hands to or closer to the floor, reach towards your toes (being mindful not to round your back) and get your rear end out of the way. These are literally the most common cues to deadlift a barbell which is a form of powerlifting. If you have unexplained low back pain, try not rounding your back for a week and see what happens.
Another pain that can usually be prevented is upper back or thoracic pain. Again, it could be from a number of problems, but once your doctor has told you they don’t see any reason for you to be in pain, check your communication habits. Do you cradle your phone between your shoulder and head, do you look down to text or to just look at your phone all day, or do you have a job in front of the computer and are sitting all day? The answer to fixing these problems really are found in the questions themselves. Don’t have your phone lower than eye level, don’t keep it between your shoulder and ear, and for the love of all that is holy stand up every so often and sit without slouching!
With the new year around the corner how about you keep this year simple. Change a habit a month. It could be to eat a vegetable at every meal, stop texting while driving, eating, or walking, or getting eight hours of sleep each night. Because if you don’t start paying attention to what you do most of the day, the 4 percent of your day you spend in the gym won’t prevent you from having pain. You have the ability to be your own advocate. We only get one body in this life, take care of it!
