Weekly Health Talk with Dr. P: Standing From a Chair

Are you experiencing pain or discomfort when you stand up from a chair? Dr. Parson demonstrates daily exercises to help train your body and start living pain-free.

Morning guys, Dr P here. So, we're going to address another thing and a very common issue uh it hurts me to get up from sitting, from that sitting to standing and you know what that is it's generally L5 disc and such right around that lumbosacral area that's causing the problem. Well, you keep beating it up by the way you sit and the way you do it. Most of these problems that present to me are cumulative trauma, what you've done on your daily life over and over and over and over and over. So, and how you sit and how you do it keeps aggravating it. So, what we got to address those daily things that you got to practice and you got to maybe train for to get this back. I mean you start getting people 15 above man they just lost the hips, and it’s difficult to train but it can be done, it can change your world if you start doing them right. So, first we'll address the proper mechanics and little things to start doing uh and we've got a chair here so that we'll first address chair and sitting. So, first I'll show you approaching the chair, boom. My tail goes back and I found this chair with my hips. I didn't oh recognize That? All right, common I can see you a mile away how you get up and down what you're doing and how you're Aggravating. So, we find the chair with hips, butt however you want to put it. All right so and then we're fine. So now we want to get up. We want same concept, always go to the end of the chair. You got these bones here that you sit on, I use sit bones um so let's use them. If you go towards the end of the chair, and this takes a little practice to do it but your back won't hurt when you get up if you learn to do this and it's all involved your hips, got to get a little Leg strength, you got to train a little bit and I'll show you what I mean. So, my goal is to keep my back straight not all Right lumber up. Um we want to when we finally come up, we want to be away from the chair, all right. So, I want to get my hips underneath me, I've come to the edge of the chair and I stand up and I squeeze all right. Back didn't Lumber, I'm walking out all right. My back was straight all I did was bring my hips underneath me and thus I'm going to find the chair with my tailbone, all right. And it becomes second nature now that may look easy you wouldn't believe how the inability or the strength and what would and there's a lot of stumbling and fumbling and it's easy to do and your back will not hurt when you get up if you learn to do this. In other words, you're not coming straight up your goal is to be out here when you're finally standing up. That applies to anything, come to the edge, go to the  edge of your chair, your recliner, whatever the case may be, couch, get off of it and walk outward and learn to get  your hips underneath. So how do you want to train for that? So here we come back to this thing, air squats all right. Air squats are in every major workout routine these days uh from even challenges that how many can you do and people challenging each other, air squats or just that you don't put weight on it you don't load up and do all the things you don't have to join a gym, maybe you find a doorway and you learn to tap your butt backwards coordinate your knees, hips and the squeeze is just as important as going back we're squeezing our hips we're learning to fire glutes back boom, back, squeeze. Hips and knees bend, knees never go over the toes the accordion squat, no. That's what you want to do and that's what you're used to doing, butt back 25—50 per day and then it will take you maybe I don't know two to five minutes, take your time. But you keep doing that, you start learning to engage where the lifting should occur, hips. Round here, not here. So, lifting, so first um lifting everybody does damage when they lift, especially you construction guys and you're you know you're doing this and you're working out the yard  you're getting back mulch and you're throwing this, all right. That's cumulative trauma and you're going to end up in my office or worse, surgery eventually. Degenerate disc, all the things that occur but we won't get into that.  So, golfers got it down, most of them and they instinctively do it they've just done it over and over, there's ball in the hole, they reach over they go one legged and boom, that's all hip. They ain't gonna hurt their back, they don't go down and pick the thing up like this. So, it's a golfer's pick up. The more you can take an object and come here, you feel it in here, and you got in here and you'll even feel the stretch. Back remains as straight as you can boom, pick it up. Okay, small objects on a daily basis one easy that's easy to change but you've got to practice that. Um secondly let's uh, thirdly let's talk about lifting an object. Out in the yard, mulch bag, whatever and you do this over throughout your life. See my glutes are dead, my back is rounded this, these muscles get bigger and bigger which we see they start doing all the work they're not designed to do that, back blows or wears down. So lifting, if you get if you got something you gotta you need a little strength to do, counterintuitive move but we talked about it. The tail goes back from the object, here's your object, tail goes back. Just think about that; my chest is still up, tail goes back, mulch bag, boom. Legs, hips. Way to blow a disc, blow your back out is keep lifting over and then twist number one  thing that damages the disc. Forward bend, even with a slight twist. So again counter-intuitive maybe, object, tail back, lift here. Small things, and how to train for it? Again, air squats get these things working, get these things in tune. You'll find doing those things if you have a reason, I don't care how hard you've worked in the day, I don't care. Construction guys, “Oh man I work all day”. I'm not asking you to join, go to the gym do a 30–40-minute workout. I'm asking you to maybe in the morning train with your air squats, make a goal: I'm going to do 25 and do 50 per day and do them right. Hands out right, tap your butt against the wall to make sure you're doing it right and because if you're doing it wrong, and your knees go forward you'll never tap your butt against the wall. So those little things can make A big difference over time and I need you doing those if you want to get well and move on to supportive care. All right, have a good day! Hope those help, thanks bye.