When exercising, are you still "turning your neck, waist and knees"? Stop now!

"Three circles to the left, three circles to the right, 360° and one more circle!" Have you ever exercised your cervical spine like this? Unscientific exercise movements not only fail to strengthen your body, but may also harm your health!

Interview experts:

Luo Xianzheng (Professor of Orthopedics, Beijing Friendship Hospital)

He Qingzhong (Professor of Track and Field Teaching and Research Section, Beijing Sport University)

Cheng Hongren (PhD student in sports education and training at Wuhan Institute of Physical Education)

"One, two, three, move!"

Since when, sports are no longer the exclusive hobbies of the middle-aged and elderly. Among the young people who are prevalent in the "stay-at-home" culture, fitness has also become a popular fashion: download a fitness app on your mobile phone, and exercise with the "cloud coach" every day, whether it is Pilates or flying yoga, it seems that it is not a problem to go from a "sports novice" to a "sports expert" in seconds. However, unscientific exercise movements not only fail to play a role in strengthening the body, but may also damage your health!

Stop turning, your cervical and lumbar vertebrae are calling for help!

At work, with computers, after get off work, with mobile phones, young people today are "head-down tribe" and are very familiar with the feeling of "uncomfortable neck" and "sore shoulders". In more serious cases, they may also experience symptoms such as numbness of fingers, dizziness and vomiting. Driven by huge demand, a large number of formulas have appeared on the Internet in recent years, especially the old folk remedy of "three circles to the left, three circles to the right, 360° and one more circle", which has been passed down by word of mouth for many years. However, is this circular exercise method really reliable? On the contrary, it will make the already fragile cervical spine worse!

(Video source: Huolu)

△Unscientific fitness methods are very harmful (Video source: Douyin account yaohuo0513)

In fact, the human body is a sophisticated "instrument" that has a certain range of motion for each "component" when it is "factory set". For the cervical spine, which has relatively small joints, large-scale circular movements will exceed the pressure range that the cervical spine can withstand. In addition, the special structure of the human cervical spine also makes this part "naturally" more sensitive.

△ Schematic diagram of the functions of the atlas, axis and transverse ligament (Chinese version of the map by Wang Xueying)

It turns out that the reason why humans can turn their heads freely without having to move their whole body is all thanks to the "not so stable" connection between the first cervical vertebra (atlas) and the second cervical vertebra (axis). As an important component of the human "backbone", the atlas is like a large oval tray that supports our head steadily, while the axis is the central hub of the entire spine, inserted into the atlas by a protruding part like a big tooth, and connected to the latter in this way.

In addition to bones, the cervical spine is also surrounded by various strong muscles, ligaments and other soft tissues, which protect the cervical spine and cooperate with each normal human head turn and rotation. However, improper stretching and excessive weight bearing will lead to poor muscle strength and reduced endurance. When the muscles that serve as a "protective cover" become loose and can no longer normally control and protect the movement of the joints, it is very easy to cause dislocation of the cervical spine, resulting in symptoms such as neck pain, dizziness, nausea, and seriously affecting the entire spine.

△ Schematic diagram of the relationship between muscles and ligaments and the cervical spine (Chinese translation/Wang Xueying)

"The normal range of joint motion of the cervical and lumbar vertebrae includes flexion, extension, lateral flexion and left and right rotation, but patients with vertebral artery type cervical spondylosis are prohibited from doing neck exercises," Pang Si (pseudonym), a teacher of sports rehabilitation at Shenyang Sport University, told reporters. There are many types of cervical spondylosis in clinical practice. Without considering one's own condition, there is a great risk in blindly performing exercises such as prone weight-bearing, forward and backward head raising, bent-over neck bridge, and backward neck flexion.

"Anti-gravity head-lifting exercises can effectively improve the symptoms of patients with cervical spondylosis, but for patients with spinal cord, vertebral artery or nerve root cervical spondylosis, the weight will get heavier the more you do it," he said. "Different age groups have different health exercise methods. Whether the exerciser has a history of disease or not, the exercise methods suitable for them are different. Especially for key parts such as the cervical and lumbar spine, blindly following the trend can easily cause injuries," said Luo Xianzheng, professor of orthopedics at Beijing Friendship Hospital.

Zhang Chang, deputy chief physician of the Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine at the Aerospace Center Hospital, believes that compared with turning in circles, appropriate daily "looking left and right" and "nodding forward and backward" training is more conducive to scientifically exercising the rotation and flexion and extension functions of the cervical spine, especially for people with limited rotation on one side of the cervical spine and abnormal physiological curvature of the cervical spine due to long-term desk work. "The function of cervical spine exercises is to relax the neck muscles and relieve cervical pressure." However, Zhang Chang also emphasized that when exercising, you must pay attention to a uniform and gentle speed, and remember not to move too violently, otherwise it will be counterproductive and induce discomfort symptoms such as dizziness.

△The human spine has a specified range of motion, and different movements have different effects on the lumbar spine (Chart: Wang Xueying Data: SequenceWize)

Similar to the cervical spine, the waist is also a part that is very easy to get injured if it is not trained properly. In fact, whether it is the cervical spine, thoracic spine or lumbar spine, human spinal movement has different rotation limits in different situations, and it is easy to get injured if the limit is exceeded.

For the waist, on the one hand, circular exercises with uneven force will relax the muscles and ligaments, resulting in the inability to normally control and limit joint movements; on the other hand, the rotational movement will also cause terrible shear force on the lumbar spine. These two parallel but opposite forces will greatly increase the risk of lumbar disc herniation, and can easily lead to the consequence of "injury instead of fitness".

△ Different pressures cause different damage to the lumbar spine, so you should pay special attention when exercising (Chart: Wang Xueying Data: radiologykey)

Are you running with your front foot, your back foot, or your whole foot?

In recent years, running, as a low-threshold and high-efficiency form of exercise, has become increasingly popular among people of all ages. Whether you want to lose weight or simply relieve stress, running whenever you want seems to be a good choice. However, are you sure that your running movements are correct?

In fact, in daily life, we will adopt different landing methods according to our needs: when sprinting, people will instinctively land on the forefoot. At this time, the body will lean forward significantly, the angle between the calf and the ground will become smaller, and the landing point of the foot will be closer to the body. In contrast, if you want to "brake" when running fast, the body's instinctive action will be to "hard land" on the heel, take a big step to straighten the front leg, and extend the back leg backwards, so as to stop the body as soon as possible. So when running in daily life, which method do we use more scientifically?

△Different ways of landing (Chinese translation: Wang Xueying)

For a long time, people have been arguing about which footing method is more scientific. Even so, if we carefully observe the world-class runners, we will find that whether it is the "front foot" Usain Bolt and Osako, or the "heel" Eliud Kipchoge and Sarani Flanagan, their footing methods are very profound. For example, the front foot method is more about using the outer side of the forefoot to make a virtual touch, and then quickly turning to the palm of the forefoot to put force, rather than directly landing on the forefoot as people understand it.

"Most of the world's top athletes land mostly on the forefoot from the beginning to the end, and then on the forefoot during the final sprint. On the one hand, it is because this method accelerates extremely quickly, and on the other hand it is because their superior physical fitness supports this acceleration," He Qingzhong, a professor at the Track and Field Teaching and Research Department of Beijing Sport University who has been engaged in marathon training for many years and served as an assistant coach for the national marathon team, told reporters. Both foundation and physical fitness will affect the way of landing, and it is not scientific to generalize which method is healthier.

(Photo source/Visual China)

In fact, different landing methods have different advantages and disadvantages: landing on the heel mainly uses the bones as support, which has great supporting strength and saves muscles effort, especially when the body is tired in the later stage of long-distance running, it is easy for people to land on the heel first, but this method has a slow reaction speed, is not conducive to speeding up, and has poor cushioning. If there is no certain foundation, it will cause a greater impact on the bones and joints; landing on the forefoot mainly uses the muscles and tendons as support, which has a better cushioning effect and a more obvious speed-up effect, but this method has higher requirements on the muscles, is prone to fatigue, and the muscles and tendons are easily injured.

Cheng Hongren, a doctoral student in sports education and training at Wuhan Institute of Physical Education, believes that landing on the outside of the heel, the forefoot or the entire sole of the foot are all reasonable ways of running. As for which one is better, "it depends on the specific sport or running distance and speed requirements." "For less professional runners, if you practice long-distance running, we still recommend landing on the entire sole of the foot," she said. "This can effectively avoid muscle and tendon injuries caused by landing on the forefoot, and reduce joint damage caused by landing on the heel, and the overall risk of injury is lower."

In this regard, He Qingzhong also said that professional athletes can change their step frequency and stride according to different needs and adjust their footing methods, which is closely related to their strong physical fitness.

"When running, the body will be in the air, and the landing will have an impact on the bones, muscles and ligaments," He Qingzhong said. For ordinary people, you can appropriately reduce your stride to reduce the impact. "For people who want to run to lose weight, if you are very heavy, you must gradually strengthen the strength of your lower limbs and the muscles around the joints before running, otherwise any way of landing will cause damage to your body."

Written by reporter Wang Xueying Edited by Liu Zhao

New Media Editor/Lv Bingxin

Produced by: Science Central Kitchen

Produced by: Beijing Science and Technology News | Science Plus Client

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