Is Sitting Really a Non-Strenuous Activity? A walk through the offices of any company or hospital where a few, or perhaps hundreds of people sit at their desks or workstations day in and day out, might lead the observer with the impression that sitting in a benign posture. Nothing can be further from the truth. While sitting can take the “load off your feet,” it also increases the pressure on the lower back, including the discs, as well as the upper back and neck. Poor posture, such as “slouching” in your chair or slumping and rounding your shoulders forward, add to the strain placed on your spine and muscles. Imagine placing your elbow on a table, with your arm straight up, and a 12-pound bowling ball in your hand. If it is balanced, you could stay there comfortable for quite a few minutes. Now imagine extending your arm out in front of you, palm up. Place a 12-pound bowling ball in your hand and see how long you can maintain that position (posture). Not very long at all, I guarantee it! Yet that is what we are asking your neck and upper back muscles to do each and every time we slouch, slump or look down and hold our head in that posture. A look at the office workstations of prior decades shows the typewriter as the central tool. Since typewriters required manual feeding of paper, along with frequent changes of paper, the office worker would make larger movements and utilize the larger muscle groups of the arms, shoulders and upper back much more frequently to accomplish changing pages. All of this would make more parts of your body share the work, so no one area experienced too much stress. For the person who can input a rate of 60 words per minute, your striking the keyboard on an average of 18,000 times per hour. So in our “computer” office environment, we hold long, constant postures and small movements are all that is necessary to find and process information. Most of us also have computers at home where we spend additional time in the prolonged seated postures. The result is very few muscles share the work, they rarely rest, and stress builds up in them. Multiplied by hours per day, days per week, weeks per month, etc., it is easy to see why sitting and its associated activities as a primary office function are not only strenuous but can in fact contribute to a multitude of symptoms and disorders, like headaches, neck pain, low back pain, wrist/hand and forearm problems.The human frame, and particularly the spine, has a natural neutral position for maintaining maximum efficiency and performance and minimal stress. Maintaining this posture as often as possible in all activities and especially while sitting is essential to good musculoskeletal health. In addition, recent research on posture and systemic health is showing a correlation between poor posture and its negative impact on health, as organ function can be compromised.
Posted on: Sun, 29 Sep 2013 03:46:09 +0000
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