A new study presented at the World Congress of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) in Denver found that office workers doing two minutes of exercise a day reported lower levels of neck and shoulder pain after 10 weeks.
Here a few things that I took away from this piece:
1. Two minutes of resistance exercise reduced perception of pain in the neck/upper back in office workers as much as twelve minutes of the same resistance exercise. Therefore, more exercise is not necessarily better.
2. The reduction in pain perceived by the office workers was only 1.4 on a 10 point scale. This is not enough improvement to stimulate office workers to continue the exercise plan despite the mere 2 minutes a day. In our microwave society, changes have to be more dramatic to entice the masses to consistently do anything.
3. When determining a set of symptoms is musculo-skeletal, and more importantly related to reduced muscle tone, muscular endurance is the antidote. Developing muscular endurance is best served with daily exercise.
When diagnosing the root cause of any set of symptoms, it is extremely important to understand that pain is a small part of the equation. In office workers it would be very important to determine if the condition is predominantly mechanical or are there co founding issues that preclude the body from functioning on a high level. Diet, Sleep, Drug regimen-most Americans are taking an average of 2 prescriptions as well as Over-the-Counter medications. These and many more scenarios relate to accumulation of inflammation and the inability of the body to heal itself which can contribute to joint pain and discomfort.
Dr David Marcon
Work Smarter Not Harder!
Cincinnati, Ohio
www.drdavidmarcon.com
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