a byproduct of be sedentary during long flights is that “the hip flexors are tight all the time, which puts the glutes to sleep,” Perrin said. That tightness in your hip flexors ends up causing lower back pain, so you want to avoid that by keeping your glutes moving.
Perrin’s subtle in-seat way to do it is to have one leg bent at a 90-degree angle and the other slightly bent with the heel flexed. Drive the weight into the slightly bent leg, which will squeeze the glute and release the hip. Hold for 30 seconds, then switch sides. “It wakes up the glute and that will decrease the amount of restriction that people feel through the hip flexor,” she said. For long flights, he does one round of these chest lifts plus every two to three hours.
Borden keeps his glutes engaged by bringing along a BackJoy Posture Plus Blue seat, which creates an active sitting position and corrects the position of the pelvis. Borden clips it to his backpack for flights and “you can get out of a plane and you don’t have back pain,” he said.
