Archetypal Rest Postures
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- Опубліковано 26 лип 2024
- I’ve been suspicious of stretching in the past, especially static stretching.
You don’t see Hadza tribes people doing the downward dog, hitting the couch stretch, or doing toe touches every morning. They simply move around a lot and avoid sitting in chairs for ten hours a day, and it’s enough. Right?
But over the past few months, I’ve become acquainted with Matt Wallden, the Global Head of Education for the Chek Institute. Like me, he’s obsessed with taking lessons from human evolution and applying them to humans living today to help them thrive. We really hit it off, so much that we collaborated on a pair of papers that appear in the April edition of the Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies that discuss the power of “Archetypal resting positions” (several positions depicted in the article) and the crisis (and solution) of “Modern disintegration and primal connectivity.”
In the papers, we posit that it’s not just our tendency to sit in chairs way too much that’s destroying our health, movement quality, and tissue quality. We’re also failing to utilize the archetypal resting positions that humans have been using for hundreds of thousands of years. Sitting in chairs isn’t ideal, but far worse is our neglect of the dozen or so permutations of ancestral floor positions.
The full squat, with heels down.
The high kneel.
The low kneel.
The side sit.
The long sit.
The cross-legged sit.
In each of these positions, some tissues are lengthened (stretched) while others are compressed.
The squat stretches the back, glutes, quads, and calves.
The high kneel stretches the quads, Achilles’ tendon, and foot fascia.
The low kneel stretches the feet and quads.
The long sit stretches the hamstrings and wrist flexors.
The cross-legged sit stretches the hip adductors and rotators.
The side sit stretches the external and internal rotators of the hip.
If you alternate between all the positions, every limb will receive the stretch/compression treatment that has been shown to improve tissue healing and maintain tissue viability and function.
Many of these positions also restrict blood flow to specific areas of the body, a practice that has been shown to enhance connective tissue healing. You restrict the blood flow and then restore it, and the tissue gets a “rebound” effect.
Now imagine doing this all the time, whenever you’re at rest. Imagine not having any chairs at all. Imagine how you’d feel-and move, and perform, and recover-if instead of spending 10 hours a day hunched over in a chair you spent 2 hours a day exposing your body to these archetypal stretch/compression positions.
Not only that, but sitting in these archetypal resting positions may even improve glucose tolerance.
We cite research showing that a gentle passive stretching program (10 different stretching positions, 4 30-second “reps” each for a total of 20 minutes) lowers blood sugar in diabetics. That’s a possibility, but I’ve always found dedicated stretching or mobility routines to be the hardest to maintain. And I’m not alone-pretty much everyone hates stretching. A more evolutionarily-congruent method would be to integrate these resting positions into your daily life.
Hanging around at home or at the park or beach? Sure, getting down into these positions on the floor is cinch. You could easily make that work. But what about at work? What if you work in front of a computer? I’m picturing a floor-based workstation that enables the archetypal resting position as you work, sort of a low-lying modular “desk” that can be manipulated into various shapes to adhere to your particular resting position. That would be very cool and very interesting. We haven’t done the research on the cognitive effects of chair sitting vs archetypal resting positioning, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they offered some performance-enhancing effects for knowledge workers.
In the next couple weeks, Matt and I will be releasing a podcast discussing the archetypal resting positions and other topics in full.
For now, why don’t you make it a point to spend the next month doing at least one hour of archetypal floor sitting every day? See if you notice any improvements to your tissue function, and report back. I’d love to hear your results.
Thanks for reading, everyone. Take care!
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A few days ago, I sat in my room at my desk all day cramming for school. I just started school back up and I'm not used to spending time at a desk. As time went on, my back started to hurt, my whole body was tense, and I just felt overall *unwell*. I have a standing desk attachment, but when I need to focus intently on difficult material, it's easier for me to focus when I sit. I intuitively moved my standing desk attachment to floor and just sat on the ground (crosslegged, crouching in deep squat, whatever was comfortable at the moment), and after just a few hours I felt almost completely back to normal!
This video changed my life....I´ve only been doing this for a week but I feel better than I ever have....thank you so much for sharing this.
Mark sisson you are the friggin GOAT sir. You were key in changing my life 8 years ago
this is great, after a day like this my hips and back feel so much better. also removes the need for thinking you need a super fancy desk and chair setup. great for a laptop warrior
this is so basic and great for the body but overlooked. thank you for reminding us.
This is incredible
you all prolly dont care but does anybody know of a way to log back into an instagram account??
I was stupid forgot my password. I love any assistance you can offer me!
@Jefferson Sean instablaster :)
@Nikolas Kareem thanks for your reply. I got to the site thru google and Im waiting for the hacking stuff atm.
Takes a while so I will get back to you later with my results.
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Thanks so much you really help me out!
@Jefferson Sean Glad I could help =)
i like your setup you gave there, and yes! when ever i leave my chair and find a nice place to sit and getting use to sitting and move around and change position, it has this difference perception of time since the body automatically pushes us to move all the time as natures wanted us to do, always on the go for something new and fresh!
Great, thank you! I will share this with my friends.
Love this concept of ancient resting postures to do stretching whilst I work
Look for Yoga sitting postures, it's an Indian way of living
Excellent video!
I already listened to the Podcast, read your journal article, and now just stumbled on this video ! Great read, love the return to the basics, simplify and heal.
this explains why my body keeps on doing this position without even thinking wew! you explained it well! I customized my desk to avail this position .
A whole new take on the metaphor, down to Earth
😂😂
Interesting video, I will try to sit on the ground as much as possible. 👍
Thanks for this information. I am going to get a sitting desk.
My favorite position is Hero’s pose, a yoga position, where one sits on one’s derrière, with knees bent and feet back on each side of the derrière. That’s tough for most people, especially if one has knee problems. To make it easier, sit on a yoga block placed horizontally under the derrière, with feet along each side. When I feel like changing position, I sit cross-legged on a yoga block or do a yoga squat. BTW, I got my coffee-table-height desk at IKEA.
Yeah and for me Yoga was really really really use, Yoga is some kind of Magic
Love this!
Thank You
Great video Mark. I’m catching up to your age and much appreciate your info that I can send off to my friends to show them you don’t have to act in a stereotypical ‘old’ way, but rather a archetypical fit aging way. Lol.
Ive started sitting on the floor a week ago
After a week my back feels so much better
I like this way of sitting a lot more then sitting in a computer chair
Its the natural way of sitting down
Very good for back bones and muscles
Not if you have chronic lower back pain. Then it’s a disaster. At least for me
Look for Yoga
Just found this out just after I bought a new couch I could have saved money
Floor gang
Hello, i have a desk that goes up and down. But when it is down, it is not enough down, it’s a little tto high to be on the ground. What could I buy in order to be higher ? Thank you so much for your devices and your books. Philippe
I have always done this to some extent which I think is a bit 'ADHD', but the main challenge I find is the 'until my body wants to move' thing. I'm normally so focused on what I'm doing that I can forget even that I was desperate for the bathroom 4 hour ago - best believe I can forget my legs are getting sore! It would be awesome to have an idea how long is a 'normal' amount of time to manage each posture so I could set up some prompts.
Hi Mark, I seemed to feel so much better after sitting on the floor as compared to a chair while I work. I was diagnosed with a building disc l5/s1. Have you seen improvement in people with lower back pain from sitting on the floor? thanks again for sharing.
Do yoga man, it really really really helped me and comforted my pain, it'll surely help you.....
Hi, do you know if there is any information about blood circulation between sitting on chairs vs sitting on the ground? Thank you
I do know that the circulation goes better to the heart when sitting on the floor. It pools down to the feet more in chairs.
Slav squat!
Robert Cz Slav squat you!
🇵🇱
So basically It's Yoga Positions "rebranded"
Will this be beneficial if you work 8+ hours a day at a desk🤔
What do you do if the poses are immediately uncomfortable. I seem to be deformed and unable to do these - I fall over or strain... I am afraid of forcing an injury...
Listen, just Google yoga Sitting postures they are way easy and beneficial and from my own experience, these type of sitting positions hurt initially but later on they become comfortable.
Initially I could only do Vajra Asan (Yoga position) for like 2-3 min max. but now I can sit for hours, it's really good for digestion and spine and Mind.......
Does anyone know what kind of desk he's using?
It's just concrete in the shape of the desk
It's called Plank Table or Bed table, you might find it's portable variants, but if you want same as his, you would have ti build it
Should we be considerate of back posture / slouching during these positions ? Should our back be straight?
Always straight
Great vid, but that last stretch isn't an ancient stretch, and can be detrimental to the bent knee. I know this from experience. Movement expert Pavel Tsoutsiline warns people not to do it
which one is it?
I mean doing this all day
i rather squat sitting than sitting on chair. sitting on chair gives me back pain and headache.
How old is this guy?..
In his 60s he a beast
40 and 70 at the same time
Isn't the keyboard too high or too low?
Straight high quality chairs are unbeatable. Imagine worrying about changing posture all the time.. How to write in certain positions, to read.. type.. While on chair you can also move mouse with high precision. Is science going backwards?