 Yeah, guys two robots here now some of you may know me as the sports chiropractor some may know me as The TV guy the actor and some of you may know me from my days in the early 2000s writing my scooter around Newcastle University, but Either way the one thing we all have in common is that we're part of the Newcastle University alumni and the team there have reached out to me to put together for you guys a Mixture of structures Educational stuff on how to set up your office at home now that a lot of us are working from home How to get you through this time keeping your spine healthy your mind healthy and keeping Keeping us moving forward as well mentally and emotionally. So the first thing I'm going to kick off with is It's it's an assessment. This is it's really good to have outcome measures, you know We can feel quite stuck when we're quarantining at home or we're self-isolating at home And it's easy to feel like when I'm moving forward now with all these stretches of mobility exercises I'm going to give you I want to give you an outcome measure little assessment You can do beforehand and then we can test it afterwards and you can test it week on week Now this is one of the simplest tests I do in the clinic with my patients and it is simply looking at One of things when we sit at this all day really tight in the upper body And then we get locked up in the thoracic and neck has to do this to look at the screen And we get jammed in the neck. We get headaches neck issues lower back issues and all that So this is attempts to kind of test out shoulder mobility Thoracic mobility and lower body knee mobility all in one test So look at yourself. You're right. What is the last time I actually squirted, you know Bumped around it's something that we we do as kids We used to you know as kids we sit and play with our toys and stuff like this, but it's adults We forget how to do it. We we generally don't see any lower than Toilet the bed at the car seat. We don't even get any lower. So we get weak in that lower area This test is going to test it out and see whether you've been looking after yourself If not, then it'll show you how you can improve on it So the first one we do we go back into the wall like this We're going to get our toes about two inches from the wall and we're going to have our feet at squat distance apart So about just over around about shoulder width apart toys pointed out a little bit And we're going to have our arms about twice shoulder width apart palms on the walls So we start fit the right position Arms twice shoulder width the elbows must stay dead straight And what we're trying to do is we're going to slide down the wall and you want to find at what point we're going to try And these are where what we're going to try and go all the way down And all the way back up now if you're getting to a point Where a lot of people get stuck around here They feel like they're going to fall backwards or they feel like they've got to bend their elbows to get down That's usually so I have a couple things so it's either a lack of thoracic mobility So you're lacking that extension through the thoracic and also it can be hip core and ankle issues not enabling you to get your Your bum right down the ground So that's a really good assessment as to Where you're at and some of you can come back and test yourself after all these other stretches Yeah, before I give you these stretches. I want to go through the cause What is the cause of our neck issues and things? I mean you can come in to see me as a chiropractor I can crack away at massage and all this But if you just go back to doing what cause of the issue in the first place for us We just can go around in circles the usual cause is the way we sit or a desk sale. So I'm going to use your piano stool To show you the basics of how to sit properly Now when we sit normally, it's all Using school sit upright 90 degrees of the knee in the hips and like this now to sit upright like this I'm constantly fighting gravity gravity is trying to push me down like this. I Have to use all the muscles in my lower back and my hip flexes to keep me upright like this As I start to fatigue if I do this for half an hour grabs them I'm gonna I'm gonna fall into this slump I'm gonna have to continue to look forward I'm gonna jam my head up like this and then use of the lower I get the higher I've got a hold my hand to the keyboard. So if I was to lock in like this and stand up I actually look like this look like some kind of tyrannosaurus rex. So What I want to do is you want to get yourself move yourself About halfway along the chair as you normally would and you need to get to a position where you can get your knees Lower than your hips. So you want your quads Angle forward a little bit. This will kind of resemble I guess some it's like it's like you're riding a horse You never see someone riding a horse with their knees right up here Get hoping like this because they'd smash their lower back their knees are lower than their hips they're straddling the horse and You're able to maintain this position in the body What happens is the muscles through the front actually bring the pelvis around and they keep it around by more of a pulling action Rather than purely from contraction from the muscles in the back So you're able to feel like if you feel under your bum that you'll feel your seat bones Actually connecting with the chair instead of rolling back Saper the whole time and even if you've got a backrest Usually most people they still roll back onto their sacrum lay on to the backrest and They're not actually sitting on their sit bones as soon as we get under our sit bones We can maintain this for so much longer even they still should have breaks. This is a lot more maintainable There's a lot less muscles having to work against gravity. So you won't fatigue as easily either So this is how we sit right generally the neck and everything will just flow if we have the lower body down here In the right position the neck will naturally be in the right position. It's only once we do this There's the neck then have to do this So from there we're going to set up the desk, you know I'm going to use my piano as My keyboard So what you want to do is is make sure first with this I may need to go a little higher So if you're working from home on a you know Don in your table or something like that you may be able to use a cushion get yourself in that position Where you can still have that angle of the knees Sloping down knees lower than the hips Now the angle here should be 90 degrees or more We shouldn't be up like this and have the desk too high if the desk is too high Try and boost yourself up as much as you can or try and move to a lower desk But ideally read this nice relaxed position 90 degrees or less here and Then you want to have your head up nice and straight If you're on a laptop Then ideally we put that up onto a couple of books so that the top third of the laptop Is straight in front of our eyes? But for that you would need a wireless keyboard now That could be a really good investment if you're gonna be here for the next six months If you are just still on a laptop and the screens down there at least try to get everything else Right, and then when you're looking down at it use your eyes to look down rather than your head So you serve stuff like this just keep your head up right look down your eyes and work like that That's kind of the simplest and best way you can set up your desk just with using what's around the home I'm gonna take you guys into some of the key stretches one of the best this is a stretch It's also a strengthening exercise Most of the time we get really weak in these muscles between our shoulder blades. They're constantly stretched and They're still on But they're just they're on all the time. They're not getting blood flow through them That's why it's so tight get trigger points. They're not actually working on and off They're just constantly kind of on holding in a stress position. So This is called the wall angle the way this one works. We go Feet so knees softly bent feet shoulder to butt bum on the wall shoulders head Arms go up like this. We want to keep the elbow and the fingers Contacting the wall the whole time Now ideally we start the easy version is we just go straight up till we get straight elbows and Back down now that elbow and the hands has to stay in contact with the wall Most people with elbows want to come off the wall if you're really tired now in the back Have to keep the elbows on the wall if you can only get to there just go to there work to that range Don't let the elbows come off if you can't do two arms. Just focus on one Open one at a time get that one good get that one good and then eventually you'll be able to do it together So it starts to look like this you breathe out as you push up You don't want to go too wide and you don't want to go too close. You just want to go up and end up in a V now The next step to this what we're aiming for is we want to actually roll the pelvis back and get the lower back Flat on the wall and have no gap in there. So some people really struggle with this But essentially it's just like we're trying to roll our pelvis back It's almost like someone's trying to pull your belt up Even if you have to slump for a little bit slump get that lower back stuck on the wall Then start to peel up a back up get the shoulders on neck on bum on now Test and see have I still got that lower back pushed in what you find is the tummy Draws right in because it's the abs trying to keep a little slope in the knees But it's the abs pulling that low back into the wall then so we've taken out all that lumbar extension and We're creating pure thoracic extension So the arms go back up elbows on fingers on it We keep that lumbar spine pushed against the wall You can start with one arm and you can sort of feel so as you push up your lower back wants to come off the wall You've got a push and squeeze all the muscles between the shoulder blades To keep the elbow on the wall as you push up and keep the lower back on the wall So it's this co-contraction between we're trying to pull in here But we're trying to extend the upper back at the same time So you find all these muscles in here You're trying to like a rusty hinge They're trying to get some extension in our thoracic and up the back. That's been so locked up for so long So low back on the wall. It's going for two hands. I'm just gonna do three sets of eight. It's a big breath in and then That bit that's really hard relax the neck Pushing up you're making sure as I push up my abs are working really hard to keep my lower back Bloody it's the wall now. You'll see me in the gym doing this with no weights in my hand, but I'm going And that's essentially really we're working some of these muscles They're not pushing against gravity or a heavy weight. They're literally pushing against other tight muscles So you're getting a stretch and strengthening at the same time Eventually what may seem really hard right now will gradually become easier But this is one of those ones that kind of like brushing your teeth and flossing your teeth This exercise the wall angle is one of the best exercises you can do when you get off the wall You've done three sets of eight You will feel so tall so elongated it you probably grow an inch and your head Will feel like it's more over your body instead of you know that forward head push to that people walk around with because They're stuck in the desk like this. It'll Extend you and put your head straight over your body. So that is one of the best exercises you can do the wall angle The next one is because we constantly sit in this Flex position, you know hip our hip flex up short Really good way to strengthen that is to we're going to drop down. We're going to take a knee You're going to flatten off the back foot. So we don't put too much pressure on the knee What we want to do is we want to have a straight line from the knee through the hip through the shoulder So it's not like a normal stretch where you're right forward like that Which you might have done playing 40 or whatever. It's it's straight above the knee like this now What we do is we're going to Contract and squeeze the hell out of that blue so tired and you'll get this Backwards rotation of the pelvis so forwards would be forward like this and you'd feel that arch in the tummy sticker Backwards you're gonna it's like your belly button is drawing in the pelvis is rolling backwards You know squeeze that like yourself in the bum hold that for 15 seconds now This is a an agonist antagonist contraction The harder we squeeze the glute the more we get the hip flexors to switch off and actually stretch And you should feel a stretch through here without even having to go into that full hip flexor stretch because you've got so much rotation in there and You might find that they glued holds for five seconds and then it starts to weaken a lot of us I've got weak inhibited glutes. You want to continue keep punching yourself in the bum if it goes a bit floppy again Remind it squeeze it breathe and hold that hold for 15 seconds then do the other side That is a really good way to switch out glutes on But also to switch our hip flexors off and stretch them at the same time So then when you're standing up straight up the hip flex some kind of pulling us into this this duck bump position We're getting that nice stretch through there pelvis becomes more neutral as well That's the second last stretch the last stretch is the Jefferson core This is again mixture of a stretch and an active motion. So with this one What we're trying to do is remind our body that we have all these different vertebrae a lot of us We get get stuck in our body starts to perceive that you know T1 the T12 is just one big block it moves as one block We can bend a little bit over the belly button, but that's it You should really be able to bend every little vertebrae at different levels. So we're going to start with the neck and we go C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 keep all this normal neutral C6 C7 T1 T2 T3 T4 T5 T6 So work your way down each little vertebra Then we get into so the lumbar started really bent through the lumbar here We're gonna get into lumbar so you get L1, L2, L3, L4, L5 If you can use your hands to support you're all the way down and then let it hang Then we're gonna start curling up so we're gonna leave our body hang But we're just gonna start one at a time L5, L4, L3, L2, L1 Then we're gonna go into the thoracic T12, T11, T10 T10, T9, T8, T7, T6, all the way up to right neck C7, C6, C5, C4, C3, 2, 3, 2, 1 So that as you put it together will start to look smooth It'll be nice, smooth, roll down Make sure as you get to here, don't start bending at the hips here Keep the hips forward, curl down, down, down, keep the hips there And then slide all the way down Same, you come back up Keeps the forward and slowly work your way back up That reminds the brain as you get better and better at it It's like a rusty hinge, we're just trying to get our spine each level Just moving again, instead of it having all the big blocks in it So it's a really nice one, but you want to keep some intriptominal pressure So as you go down you can do a bit of a ksss Like a car tire as you're letting down some air You want to have some intriptominal pressure to help support the spine So you can do a bit of a, as you go through it may sound a little silly But it will get to understand that You need that intriptominal pressure to support the back You can have your hand slide down as well Especially if you've got some back injuries to start with Now, if you do have any injuries through this Just always just take it easy Support, just take it one bit of time You may find at the moment you can go to here And that's it, and that's enough for you Just take it one step at a time So, that's pretty much it, you know I think this all is to help you guys To work from home And to get the most out of Just to keep you feeling productive Keep your mind twitched on Keep your body healthy whilst in isolation Now, it's really easy to feel Like we're a little stuck, you know In this moment you might be out of work Work might be on hold Life, the pace of life has slowed down Definitely for a lot of us And it is easy to feel stuck Like we're not really moving forward But one of the things you've got to remember that This can be a time where we just binge on Netflix And we, you know, life goes on hold Or it can be a time where we actually Continue to learn, we continue to develop We continue to develop our bodies You know, we may not be able to go to a normal crossfit gym Or yoga sessions or whatever But it's a time to learn new things So it takes some time to learn this stuff Get the basics right So when you come out of this You're coming from a healthier foundation Physically, mentally, emotionally Getting this meditation There's so many things out there So much free advice, so much free knowledge you can get But then also from a work point of view You know, it is a time to increase our qualifications To increase our knowledge, our skill base Our motivation You may want to learn a language, whatever it is Anything that can help you to become More employable after this If you're not in a job right now Or to increase your values So that down the track you can be paid even more Because you're worth more, because you've got more knowledge So it is definitely a time That we can continue to move forward And not feel stuck So I urge you to look for How can I continue to, you know To have a check of this each day To keep me on point How can I push through this and come out You know, better, stronger, smarter More inspire, more knowledgeable And not just come out in six months As I was, or even worse off Than I was six months ago So I think there's so much that we can do There's so much that we can do We can inspire others, keep inspiring The other, you know, the Newcastle University alumni Inspire your friends, inspire people you work with And I thank you for the privilege To be able to do this, to share some knowledge And I hope that you guys put it to good use And when we all come out of this Be a better, faster, stronger, smarter Healthier, wiser