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Junio 20, 2019

How to improve your posture at work

Posture at work, back pain, neck pain, hunching, deskwork

If you´re like many, your job requires you to be at a desk for long periods of time. Apart from the physiological aspect of low metabolism generated from being seated the entire day and all the consequences that it bring you also have biomechanical issues due to a prolonged static position.

To prevent this biomechanical issues that will lead you to musculoskeletal disorders and injuries you can use some principles that I ‘ve found useful with clients.

Practice different postures at work

If neutral posture was the solution to not having musculoskeletal disorders or injuries there wouldn`t have increased the number of injuries in the workplace.

Neutral doesn`t exist in terms of movement. You flex or extend. You rotate left or right. And you bend left or bend right. Neutral is recommended as a safety position but your body doesn`t move at all in a safe way.

If you set one alarm, each hour and use a postural based exercised program to change your posture at work.

Flex and extend the spine

Spine, posture at work, posture

Flexing and extending the spine can help you with preventing musculoskeletal injuries.

Depending on your injury history you can feel pain flexing or extending the spine. So, you don`t need to go until maximum flexion or extension.

To start changing your posture, do it seated while at your desk. You can start extending the spine (open your chest) until you can. When you get maximum range your motion flexion has to start. So you start flexing the spine from an extended position, hunching it back. Repeat and do it dynamically.

This will lengthen your spine and abdominals muscles, and also your chest and upper back muscles.

There is only one rule when doing this movement: No pain.

At Workoutbcn Strength and Movement, clients are firstly assessed in terms of movement capacity and only after exercises are prescribed. You can be a top sportsman or Joe or Jane and the same procedure will be take.ç
Contact me for an assessment. I ll will be delighted to help!

Junio 12, 2019

10 pull ups in 10 weeks

10 pull ups

Do 10 Pull ups in 10 weeks

Pull ups in terms of upper body is one of the most bang for the buck exercises. Its an excellent exercise to build upper body strength and build muscle.

It builds big muscles such as lats and others as chest, upper back, biceps, triceps, forearms. Even abs and legs, depending how you do them.

Because they give you so much you should invest more in them, specially if you don´t have too much time to exercise and if your goals is to build muscle and lose fat.

If you aren´t able to do one pull up, that´s no problem. If you are not overweight I believe you can be able to do 10 pull ups in 10 weeks!

If your weight is your problem dont quit while reading. Doing them may help you lose weight because they help you to create lean muscle. Follow my advice and at the end of the this 10 weeks you ll be able to do at least one.

The process start assessing who many full pull ups you can do. So, use a neutral grip and pull yourself up until you raise your chin over the bar. After, go down and extend your elbows while you go down. That´s one repetition. Repeat until exhaustion.

To do 10 pull ups in 10 weeks you have to progress in volume and intensity. From 1 to 2 repetitions. From 2 to 3 repetitions. Each week add one pull up to your routine because at the end the time per set matters. Beside that intensity also matters. You can add extra weigth to your pull ups to make them harder so you increase your maximum pull capacity (1RM).

Besides working your specific movement, you also have to use other movement that will increase other muscles such as rhomboids and biceps. This are vital to move your body up. Biceps curls and rhomboids pulls should be in your week routine too. Specially in the same day as the pull ups.

Final tip to keep progressing is do more eccentric work than concentric. You have more strength in the eccentric phase so that´s where you can win reps. When you perform one pull up try to go down slowly and this will help you to push your limits even further.

At Workoutbcn Strength and Movement, we have years of experience in the development of strength and performance. Our workout routines are made with the intention of pushing yourself not forgetting the security that the injury prevention exercises will give you to continue your long path.

Contact us for an assessment. We will be delighted to help!

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