Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin (From The Northern Echo)

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin

10:00am Saturday 2nd March 2013 in Sport By Paul Gough

The way that you sit might not be something that you've ever considered being an important factor in your performance in sport.

But it's huge. And the reality is that the longer the amount of time your spending either in your car, at your desk, or on your couch, the more likely you are to suffer problems with things like hamstrings, shoulder and back problems.

If you add up the number of hours in your day that you're sitting and it's more than nine, then the risk of injury and even illness increases even further.

The problem is we were never designed to sit. Your body is primarily designed to stand, so walking or running come very natural to us, for some it's effortless.

But sitting is becoming a dangerous habit for many, most people unaware of the effect as it's a case of everyone is doing it, so it must be okay.

If you're in the middle of a fitness kick at the minute, or increasing the amount of 5-a-side games your playing in an attempt to lose weight, know this: even just spending one hour siting each day reduces your body's ability to burn fat and slows down metabolism by up to 90%.

You're even going to reduce the amount of good cholesterol in your body, meaning your at a greater risk of problems with your heart and even diabetes.

But excess sitting is also going to have a huge effect on your muscles. Take the hamstring muscles for example, the more time you spend in your chair, bum back, knees bent with your feet tucked comfortably under the chair, the shorter and shorter your hamstrings are becoming.

In this position, you're probably perching upon the balls of your feet, you're doing the opposite to your Achilles - you've actually got it on a constant stretch and under tension.

Perhaps you're doing both while you read this article? Is it any wonder then that two of the most common injuries in grassroots sport and the reasons that people need to visit a physio like me are Achilles and hamstring injuries?

And one of the other problems is the pressure that goes through your back. As you sit, your head and your other organs push down on your lower back and put ten times more pressure on the ligaments and muscles than they would if you were standing.

You see, when you stand you have a very good and strong set of muscles that activate as your spine erects. When you sit, unless you have trained them through doing exercises such as the ones found in Pilates, these muscles flop.

So you're more likely to get injured when you've had a long period sitting and you, for example, lean forward quickly to pick something up.

Your back just isn't in a position to support what you want to do so you're more likely to get injured.

None of this is happening on a football pitch, but the cumulative effective and resulting injuries can reduce the time you actually spend playing the sport you love.

In the professional game a player is much less likely to be sidelined by a back injury than, say, a muscle tear or an ankle sprain.

But they can happen and when they do are often the result of a twist or an awkward fall such as in the case of Newcastle United defender Fabricio Coloccini in last weekend's game with Southampton.

Those sorts of injuries will always happen and are pretty unavoidable.

But you can reduce the risk of a stiff back, sciatica, hamstring trouble and Achilles pain keeping you on the sidelines just by simply looking at the way you sit.

And more importantly the amount of time you spend doing it.