Our seated lifestyle

or, "Why you should squat and deadlift."

Typical office manager without Gillette

The Western lifestyle is largely a seated lifestyle. We sit down for work at desks. We sit down for transport, driving or on the train or bus. We sit down for leisure, watching tv or on our computers. Our bodies don't only adapt to what we do in the gym, they adapt to our day-to-day lives, too. If we sit down all the time, our bodies adapt to that. Our muscles become unbalanced, our joints stiff and twisted. Basically we end up looking like an ape.

What I commonly see in beginners coming to the gym is what I call the Western posture: The head juts forward. The shoulders are hunched up, rounded forward, and the upper arms rotated inwards. The upper back rounds forward. The lower back is arched back. The pelvis is tilted forwards, look at the belt line on men. This causes the belly to stick out, so that even thin people think they're overweight. Mostly this is just cosmetic, however usually the person also has neck and back pain from the muscles being tensed up, and in years may get disc herniations, shoulder impingements and so on.

If this goes on, future humans may slump around on all fours in constant pain, heads raised only far enough to check their iPhones and reach up for their wet cardboard burgers. 

Image of Western posture
from Pilates Integration

How can exercise help? By giving you better posture. Physical training can change how you look, feel and perform. In the Western posture the chest and front shoulder muscles are short and tight, as are the lower back muscles and hip flexors (the muscles at the top of your thigh that raise your leg). The upper back, abdominal, gluteal and hamstring muscles are weak. So we strengthen the weak muscles, and stretch the short and tight muscles.

For these reasons, I have a beginner focus on deep knee-bends and pulling motions, we don't worry too much about pressing motions. As the upper back, legs and glutes get stronger, the person straightens up, their shoulders open up. I have one client Julian who at 1.90m tall began at 165kg, once he dropped below 140kg workmates and friends asked, "Have you got taller?" Better posture improves their looks.

As Dan John says, "the body is one piece." When we exercise it with what should be normal everyday movements like squats and deadlifts, all the muscle imbalances tend to even out. With deep squats and correct deadlifts, the weakened glutes, hamstrings and abs become stronger, and so the risk of herniated discs, shoulder impingements and trauma joint injuries from sports and so on decreases. The person can lift heavy things in day-to-day life, feels more vitality and spring in their step, many small mysterious aches and pains tend to disappear. Better posture improves how they feel.

As for performance, obviously when your muscles are balanced you can move better. Physical training is about learning correct movement. The typical beginner will just use their quadriceps to squat, raising up on their toes and rounding their lower back. A quarter of people over 70 are unable to sit down and stand up without shifting their weight forwards and using their hands, and cannot pick up 5kg off the ground; if they cannot go to the toilet unaided or do their own shopping, this has obvious effects on their quality of life and independence.

By squatting correctly and using their gluteals and hamstrings and stabilising their torso, the person will use more muscles for the same movement, and be able to run faster, push over or grapple players on the sports field, and so on. Better posture will improve how they perform.

Thus, everyone needs to squat and deadlift. This does not mean everyone needs to squat 100kg or deadlift 200kg, or even use barbells. It does mean that everyone needs to be able to do some sort of movement with a deep knee-bend, and to be able to pick up something heavy off the ground. If your work involves this, great. If not, then you need to do it in the gym. 

In this way we look, feel and perform better and become bipedal creatures once more.