I absolutely agree that people who are sedentary should consult with their doctor before starting a new exercise program. Thank you for mentioning this. The information in this article is more based on injury prevention, but it’s certainly important for people to consider any health limitations as well.

I specifically suggest that blood work be done as well as blood pressure be checked.

After this has been done, I suggest people have a consultation done with a qualified trainer.

Not that doing the above will prevent problems, however, some problems such as hig blood pressure can be detected and treated

Peter

One of the reasons why I like Assess and Correct so much is that enables the average person who doesn’t have access to a knowledgeable person like yourself to identify and address such problems without understanding the functional anatomy behind them. In addition, by going through the assessment, they’ll likely gain a better understanding of some of the anatomy and how it relates to their function. As such, it can be practical and educational at the same time.

In regard to sitting, one of the precautions that I’ve taken to make it less of an issue is to set up my home computer so that I’m standing when I use it.

It is very important individuals run through a screen assessment prior to an exercise program in order to fully accomplish their fitness and/or performance goals. Without this process, you may overdo a certain movement pattern which may prevent you from being bio-mechanically sound.

No individual is 100% bilaterally symmetrical (although some are) and therefore the first step is to assess and understand any weakness/imbalance you may have in your major joints: hips, knees, ankles, and shoulders. There are always one too many people who go to the gym and do nothing but bench pressing and biceps curls without addressing other flaws such as weak external rotators of the shoulder joint. And doing more bench pressing is only going to make the matter worse.

Most individuals will also have some form of “gluteal amnesia” – in other words – their glute musculature (and surrounding musculature of the butt for that matter) is not fully activated correctly due to continuous sitting, typing, driving, and other desk work —-> the activities that dominate the modern day individual.

When one engages in excessive sitting, typing, and driving – the hamstring muscles are continuously in concentric form and the quadriceps muscles are in continuous eccentric form. When this position is repeated, these concentric muscles hate switching over to eccentric (lengthening) and the eccentric muscles hate to be shortened (concentric). This essentially means the more you sit and remain sedentary – the more your body wants to stay that way. This means chronically tight hamstrings and hip flexors, weak un-activated glutes and weak quads and hip extensors.

A great way to prevent this gluteal amnesia is to engage in a tried and true assessment while setting goals through corrective techniques to fix these faulty movement patterns detected during the assessment. Then, you can gradually add other exercises in your workout that are not related to faulty patterns (such as biceps curls, etc) in order to get the most out of your workout.