A Journey of Legend
Loving is Caring
UAC Online Event Review: Release Your Shoulders and Neck, Stretch Your Lower Back – Relief for Desk-Bound Workers
Introduction:
Mention shoulder, neck and lower-back pain, frozen shoulder, herniated discs or tendinitis, and anyone who sits at a desk all day has a tale of woe to tell. Some companies have offered ergonomics talks, and we now understand how poor posture and intense, repetitive or long-held fixed positions relate to common musculoskeletal problems. We’ve learned about and tried adjusting our workstations, getting up regularly instead of sitting for hours, and walking for exercise – yet nothing improves. The pain is still there, and so are the forward head posture and the “dowager’s hump”, not to mention hunched backs and scoliosis…
In his talk, Coach Xuzhu Liu (strength and conditioning coach to CBA basketball stars and world sailing and windsurfing champions) led everyone through a warm-up and then gave a detailed professional analysis and guidance on the causes and remedies of spine and joint problems, analysis of and training for injuries from fitness workouts, running and other sports, how body shape relates to training, and how to choose and practice the right kind of exercise. Coach Liu pointed out that whether it’s the posture you hold day to day or your posture while exercising, correcting it doesn’t happen overnight – it is a long, cumulative process. But as long as you start consciously adjusting in the right way, you will certainly be better off than before. And exercise doesn’t only happen on the sports field: how you sit, how you walk and how you climb stairs can all be exercise. Any movement has a general standard, a right direction. If you’re interested in these topics too, please watch the talk via the video below (the guest’s views are his own and do not represent UAC).
“Loving life must, first of all, include loving your own body. I really hope my experience can show everyone that investing time in exercise in the right way pays off enormously.“
– Coach Xuzhu Liu
The talk
Q&A
Here are some of the questions and answers from this session:
Q: How do you breathe effectively during exercise?
A:
You’ll notice that top athletes never run with their chest caved in. That’s because they need to move a lot of air, and only with the torso upright can they breathe freely and efficiently. When they move, top athletes keep the whole pelvis correctly positioned and springy. If we watch sport with these things in mind, we see that exercise first requires the body to be in good condition. Every one of us can build our body’s best condition, starting with good body position.
Breathing should be a complete process. Ideally, both the chest and the belly expand, the spine lengthens upward and the diaphragm descends. The red tissue shown in the video is the diaphragm: it moves down as you inhale, because the lungs expand and the diaphragm has to move down to make room for them. So to judge whether your breathing is complete, watch carefully whether your diaphragm moves up and down.
(For more, please watch the recorded video.)
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