Aching legs and Accidental Athlete’s-and leg health2009 Copyright Michael Gillan 1 www.aching-legs.org

The Do It Yourself Recovery SystemAccidental Athletes

In these days when many jobs are being lost and companies downsize, it leaves those still workingunder more pressure for longer-and if it is a standing, walking, or sitting down at a computer, thenthe stress on leg muscles, lower back, and upper body can contribute to health problemsA reason, other than to cut costs why many people go and buy do-it-yourself manuals is that thereare not enough practitioners, tradesmen, or handymen around to do the job in hand when needed.Many people do not live in areas where the majority of those who are specialised in what is neededat the time, or if they are they could be too busy to fit you in anyway-others go for do-it-yourself forthe challenge of learning something newThe area of health is one that everyone to some extent or another is responsible for either forthemselves or someone else’s-it is something which can’t be bought and which is under appreciateduntil something goes wrong with the bodyTo stay as fit and healthy as possible some people go to the gym or take up a sport, others can’t dothis because they are just not into these kinds of things, or they are simply too busy trying to survivefinancially on a day to day basis and it is all they can do to get up and go to work, home again andback to work This was me and I did it for years, working in factories on survival pay, which is all many workersin the lower paid factories get-I was sometimes on my feet 12-14 hours a day and while I was‘trained’ to work the machines I was not trained in recovery after I finished work I had in effect become an‘accidental athlete’covering as much distance in a shift as many sportspeople do in the particular sport they are doing-only the main similarity was more to the endurancesportsFast forward to when the factory I was working in slammed the gates closed in my face-and out of the blue was jobless-for some reason decided to do a massage course-the government sponsored mein a re-training programIt was through the massage schools that I initially became involved in ultra marathon and recoveryWhile working at ultra long distance events I realized that most of the problems with my legs I hadand which were affecting my lifestyle on the factory floor were being replicated by people on therunning and walking tracksI had been an‘Accidental Athlete’all those years and had I training in how to recovery my achinglegs and sore feet that I had on a daily basis over a long term, my health may have been betterThere are many occupations and professions that come under the ‘accidental athlete’ classification-while the people in them may have trained for many years how to do what they do, they have notlearned how to recover from the hours of standing, sitting, or walking while they do it

Retail staff • Catering/waiting staff • Machine operators • Teaching staff • Assembly line workers •Construction workers • Checkout operators • Hairdressers/barbers • Casino dealers • Dental staff •Postal workers/sorters • Traffic wardens • Industrial laundry staff • Bar/hospitality staff • Health careworkers • Museum staff • Nursery staff • Library assistants • Reception staff • Warehouse staff •Meeter-greeters • Canvassers • Bank staff • Cleaners • Flight attendants • Ticket collectors • staff inhospitals • Maintenance workers • Security workers • cabin staff with airlines • Dockers • Printers •Laboratory technicians • Personal trainers • Doctors • Firefighters • Gardeners • Refuse collectionworkers • Nurses

Aching legs and Accidental Athlete’s-and leg health2009 Copyright Michael Gillan 2 www.aching-legs.org

Aching legs

The reason foraching legs-too much standing walking, running or sitting

The body is basically a column of blood and other fluids (between 65% and 85% is water) held upright bythe body structures which is subject to pressure from gravity and air pressure-left to its own devices it alltries to accumulate in the lowest part it can find

The lower legs and feet

The only thing that stops it running out all over the ground it the ends of the toes-this is why whenever a cuthappens that is quite deep, one of the main strategies to slow and stop the bleeding is to elevate the parthigher than the heart-this reduces the pressure and hopefully the bleeding by reversing gravity and pressure

What happens when the legs are not working properly-swollen ankles as the fluid builds upFortunately aching legs unless they are medically related (in which case see your doctor) arecheaper easier to fix than bad teeth if you catch them before they become chronic or long termSome problems that may develop if they are not addressed include

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Varicose veins

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Venous insufficiency

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Lower back ache

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Sleeplessness

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Angry muscles

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Spider veins

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Foot problems

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Swollen ankles

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FatigueThere are many more areas of concern and to check some of these out I refer you towww.hazards.org/standing

Aching legs and Accidental Athlete’s-and leg health2009 Copyright Michael Gillan 3 www.aching-legs.org

How can gravity and atmospheric pressure be utilized to help the legs to stop aching?

We could simply use the recommended way of doing it-and reverse the flow so that some of theweight of fluid flows back up the legs to the bodyThis way reverses the flow from the feetThis is known as

passive

recovery because it relies on the blood and fluid to leave the legs andthen the legs can recover themselves- because of the time it takes for all this to work (unknown), thelegs which may be sore, stiffen up and on standing, walking may be difficult to doAs the old blood and fluids have left the legs through the veins, new blood will have been pumpedthere by the heart through the arteries, but it too will have gone coldAll this fluid from the legs has to go somewhere so it goes again to the lowest part of the body, thistime towards the head-on standing many people will go dizzy and disoriented for a few minutes,they may even fall over or trip-this lasts until everything equalises and they regain equilibrium

If You Don’t Move It You Lose ItThis also goes for the legs and the muscles

While you have been lying with the legs elevated the muscles also stiffen up and they may go toolight-the muscles in the legs forget how to move because they are not getting any feedback frompressure and stretch receptors located in the skin, muscle tissues and joints about their environmentand position in relation to the rest of the bodyAll the feedback goes back to a part of the brain called the Cerebellum in latin this means smallbrain-with all the information supplied to it, it compares where the muscles are now, and where theyshould be-this information is sent to the brain which organises the smooth movement of the bodypart to where it is going to

In these runners who have been on the track for 3 days, the legs have stopped moving,they could not get up and walk in a straight line if they tried