womens sports and aching legs recovery

Your home-your workplace, your gymnasium

Do you want to get fit without the expense of gym fees and equipment costs?

Do more housework!

There has been research by many fitness researchers that proves doing housework can burn calories and keep you fit-yes after all that vacuuming, washing, scrubbing and mopping you are exercising you upper and lower body, and doing a cardio workout!

As you do housework you are exercising with a vacuum cleaner, or mop or even a bucket of water substituting for a piece of gymnasium equipment; it is cheaper and just as effective as going to the gym

You should be aware that when you clean up around the home you are actually being an 'accidental athlete' rather than an 'intentional' one and like any athlete or gym junkie, you should not overdo things because it can lead to muscle soreness, stiffness or injury

Housework injuries are the silent epidemic of much of the population

While keeping fit is a by-product of housework, and theoretically the more you do, the fitter you become because of the built-in exercises, the downside is that you can injure yourself if you do not do things carefully-it is your workplace as well as gymnasium and you have to treat it as such

Every year in the UK almost 4,000 people die in accidents in the home and 2.7 million turn up at accident and emergency departments seeking treatment

Workplace accidents

Workplace accidents cost industry a lot of money through lost productivity-there is the medical costs, and time off work costs where they have to not only pay wages, but also find someone to cover the job not being done by the person they normally pay to do it

Most companies abide by workplace laws and provide education and training and supply safety equipment to protect their workers from injury-but when people go home to do their housework, people forget that there is just as much danger in their home as there is in the workplace

Some people who are not part of the workforce do not realize just how dangerous (their workplace) can be and most of the people who have accidents there do not have the support of a company behind them to help protect and advise them on prevention

To fill in some of this lack of knowledge here are some websites to visit

http://www.rospa.com/homesafety/index.htm

http://www.ccohs.ca/oshlinks/subject/accidentprevention.html

http://www.hse.gov.uk/falls/index.htm

http://www.hse.gov.uk/slips/index.htm

http://www.hse.gov.uk/msd/index.htm

As you can see from these websites, the home (workplace) can be a dangerous place with endless possibilities of accidents; and the incidence of them can be reduced if the approach to housework is treated with a professional attitude to prevention of injury

Your Gymnasium (or 'accidental fitness' program)

Whether you want to or not, when you do housework you are doing an activity that can increase your fitness level-vacuuming can work your upper body-if you have stairs you are climbing them, if your are doing high dusting you may have a set of step ladders to climb up and down on that os good for the lower body

You may also be lifting weights and stretching while moving furniture and objects to clean underneath them; it is assumed that you have checked out the other sites and followed their safety recommendations before doing anymore of the house work

Recovery after your gym home/workplace/gymnasium exercise

All the kneeling, scrubbing, and moving furniture takes a toll after a hard day in the house-feeling, tight, wound up, stiff and sore is a common occurrence amongst people who work around the home as their primary occupation

If not countered by some basic stretching and muscle recovery, any accidentally caused muscular problems can develop into a long term injury-unfortunately; most of the people responsible for the home duty side of things do not have workplace representatives or insurance to cover those injuries

Prevention-Performance-Recovery

To work around the house safely without causing self harm, you should be taking similar steps to athletes who are out there doing regular competition

• Prevention is better than cure-they take precautions to prevent injury to themselves by doing warmups and stretching the muscles before starting to train or compete

Before starting work put some music on and dance around a little to get the muscles warmed up, then do some gentle stretching-you are not a sports person so you so not need to do hard athletic stretching-never stretch into pain

• Peformance is improved once you are prepared to work, both mentally and physically-love it or hate it. housework must be done, and you will get through it much faster if properly prepared without being exhausted

• Recovery is achieved faster by doing a warmdown and stretching after work-and you won't be sore and stiff as much afterwards

Upper neck and shoulders

Muscular stress-Range of movement and shoulder defensive positions

stress of bed making-upper neck and shoulders-low back

Muscles or soft tissue are made up of fibers all running in a line along the length of the muscle; they are elastic and springy; like an elastic band when it is new, they will snap back into place when it is pulled and let go

When the band ages and well used, it lose this ability to spring back into shape, and muscles can also lose this ability and flexibility not only with ageing but also with soreness and tightness caused through overuse and the muscles repairing themselves

Shoulder soreness and stiffness, reduced range of movement and with this the reduced blood flow to the brain contributing to stress levels.

The range of movement from left to right when the head is turned may be restricted

• The shoulders may be sore to touch and have a slight hunch to them as the muscles have shortened while moving away from the soreness.

• They may give tension headaches.

• Feelings of fatigue

Upper neck and shoulder tension can also cause poor performance as it reduces muscle power-many people are aware that they carry tension in the shoulders and do attempt to fix this themselves by making a conscious attempt to straighten up; this usually fails because of muscle memory and the natural inclination of the body to move away from pain.

The shoulders may develop a hunched defensive position with the muscles pulling the rib cage upwards preventing the lungs from being able to expand to full capacity; breathing is restricted to the upper portion of the lungs reducing the oxygen intake

Because many upper body soft tissue problems are deep seated they may need some aggressive work to disarm the trigger points that are causing the referred pain, .and break up the fibers that are preventing free movement in the head and neck area

This is a specialized job and needs specialized training; I would suggest that a visit to a sports massage therapist who knows about trigger point therapy and the stretching needed afterwards because more than any other they have studied stretching and reduction of soreness; they are more aware of the stretching techniques and precautions for working in these areas than many other massage practitioners

Increasing this range of movement should be left to a trained sports massage therapist who works at the level of the client but they should be reminded that they are not dealing with a trained sports person so should work within the person's limits-make them aware of this before having any work done

The legs

Tight legs and reduced flexibility from standing in awkward postures while vacuuming and mopping

Can lead to problems of swollen ankles and varicose veins

Aching legs can be easier to fix-if they are housework fatigue related
(not medically related which should be dealt with by a medical professional)

This is because they have something called the calf muscle pump built in to them whose job it is to pump used blood from the lower legs against gravity through the veins back up to the body

The pump is made up of all the leg muscles but the power for the pump to work are the calf muscles-when the calf muscles tighten up from too much use (or too much of the wrong use) the pump does not work too well leaving all the used blood in the lower legs where it blocks access of fresh blood to the muscle tissues

Lack of fresh blood to the muscles fatigues them and makes them fatigued and ache

How I deal with this, is in my manual only US$20

Any muscular-skeletal problems associated with housework should be initially checked out by a medical professional as there may be an underlying medical condition related to the complaint; once these have been cleared then it may be possible that muscular stress can be managed through physiotherapy, chiropractic, osteopathy and of course massage in its various forms, some of which are more relevant than others to relieving it

Other risk factors

Repetitive strain injuries from scrubbing and polishing
Occup Environ Med. 2009 May;66(5):299-304. Epub 2009 Mar 1.

Lower back aches from pulling heavy furnishings

Spine. 1998 Jul 15;23(14):1572-87.

Housemaids knee from too much kneeling

Med Lav. 2007 May-Jun;98(3):232-51.