THE ANCIENT GREEK GUIDE TO FUTURE PROOFING YOUR POSTURE

Tech neck. Desk slouch. Glute amnesia. Decades of sitting at a desk can wreak havoc on your muscles and lead to late-life (literal) slumps and posture problems. One powerlifter academic may have found a way to build lifelong, full-body strength and stability in a very old and rare source.

- BY MICHAEL JOSEPH GROSS

FOR CHARLES STOCKING, long hours at the desk are part of the job. As a scholar of ancient Greek and a university professor, he spends many hours sitting almost every day. And all his desk work, which may appear to be mainly work of the mind—reading and writing—also trains his muscles. Teaches his muscles how to be, or how not to be.

Sitting in a chair, he unconsciously teaches groups of muscles on the front of his body, flexor muscles, to tighten—including upper-body muscles that pull the arms and shoulders forward, such as the biceps and pectorals, and lower-body muscles, at the junction of the pelvis and legs, that pull the hips forward.

The pernicious engagement of those muscles—as well as disengagement of the opposite sets of muscles on the back of the body—helps explain why, after sitting for a while, he feels stiff and starts to ache, even though he's in good shape and not quite 45 years old. Standing up, moving around a bit, he feels more comfortable again. Aches and stiffness subside when he engages the extensor muscles on the back of his body, including upper-body muscles that retract the shoulders, such as the rhomboids, and lower-body muscles that pull the hips back as he rises from his chair, such as the glutes.

BODY: Charles Stocking at a powerlifting meet in 2003. His max was 562 pounds. He still squats, but he focuses on the deadlift now and can pull 500 pounds.

Still, the training effect of all that sitting time persists. When steady, low-level engagement of those flexors on the front of his body continues for weeks, months, and years, the body changes. This is how Stocking sees the situation: "Left to its own devices, your flexors will tighten up and take you back to the fetal position, whence you came-if you don't do something about it."