There’s a wonderful reference to this simple movement in a book series that I like, by Rex Stout. These stories feature the brilliant and temperamental detective, Nero Wolfe, who is also quite obese.
In Chapter 3 of the book The Golden Spiders, the narrator, Archie Goodwin, remarks that when Detective Cramer is with Wolfe, “... he always made a point of getting upright from a chair with the leverage of his leg muscles only, because Wolfe used hands and arms.”
So take a minute to notice how you normally sit down and how do you get up. You might ask questions such as whether you can sit down without “falling” into the seat or if you can stand up from a chair without using your arms or using momentum to swing yourself to an upright position.
You can make this motion a very simple “matter of fact”, daily practice by doing the following:
- When getting ready to sit in a chair, take your time to slowly lower your seat so that you are engaging your thighs all the way through until you make contact with the chair.
- When you are ready to get up, put emphasis into your heels (that engages your glutes) and slowly lift up.
Here’s a simple video of me demonstrating the above steps – give it a try!
Debby
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