Sit up, man!

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The weather is a turnin' here in London folks! This means that people cut out of work around noon on bright sunny days to litter the pub-side streets kicking back a couple pints with their mates. And for those of you wondering, yes, Monday through Fridays are all equal opportunity drinking days in Britain, friends.

However, it's a nice change from the bundled, sour faced Londoners that exist during the winter months, and as it turns out, they may just be doing some good by standing rather than sitting at their desks all day (now the drinking, that's a topic for a different blog).

Have you ever thought about how much of your time you spend sitting? Wait, you're probably sitting as you read this huh?

So many people out there are spending the majority of their work day in front of the computer, seated in a chair for what may seem like an eternity at day's end.

Studies have indicated that in a seated posture, our low back is withstanding forces that are four times our body weight! Multiply that by the amount of time we spend sitting and its no wonder that 8 out of 10 individuals will suffer back pain at some point in their lives.

We have explored in detail why back pain occurs, and even how to address it via exercise. We even talked about how to re-wire your brain to accept an ideal posture.

What a mouthful!

Let's talk office posture.

• Feet
  
  Starting at the bottom, while sitting at your desk are your feet flat on the ground? Ladies, this means slipping off those heels to place your tootsies smack down on the floor.
  
  This ensures that the forces on your legs are evenly distributed, thus preventing muscle imbalance throughout the hips, legs and feet (which can affect your ability to walk, run, ski, skate, balance yourself on a tight rope...all these things that we do :).


• Knees
  
  Are your knees at a level below or just level with your hips? If you need numbers, this means creating a hip angle which is greater than 90 degrees. This may pose a problem reaching the floor with your feet, in which case a shoebox should do the trick.
  
  By allowing your knees to fall below hip level while seated, this enables you to maintain an upright sitting posture in spite of tight hammy's (which tend to pull your pelvis into a backwards tilt). Furthermore, this position helps to prevent your hip flexors from tightening up!


• Pelvis
  
  Your sits bones, or ischial tuberosity are semi-circular bones which sit at the bottom of your pelvis. (This is the bone people refer to when saying that someone has a bony arse.) These are the bones that were meant to carry the brunt of the force while in a sitting position. I encourage you to check out this picture which shows a woman who is sitting on her sit bones versus sitting on the tailbone.
  
  Note that sitting on the tailbone causes spinal distortion through the entirety of the body!
  
  SO, learn to sit on your sit bones by rolling up a towel and placing it directly behind your bones while you are in a sitting position. The second you roll backwards, you will feel the towel and be immediately reminded of where you need to be!


• The rest of you
  
  Elbows should be as close to your side as is comfortable.
  Wrists should be at neutral, not bent up or down to reach the keyboard.
  Shoulders should be relaxed down, with shoulder blades melting down your back.
  Head should rest on top of your shoulders (not leaning forward to reach your screen!)
  Computer screen should be at a height where you are neither tilting your head upwards or downwards to see.

So how do you feel about your own sitting posture? Do you find yourself slouching at work and stiff as a result? Do you experience back pain? Do you take hourly breaks!?