4 Ways to Maintain your Posture at the Office.

My blog has been quiet - too quiet. There is a reason for this. I have been suffering from tendinitis in my shoulder. This has put pay to my typing and in turn has put a stop to my blog and my book.

A lot of my problems with tendinitis are apparently caused by years of bad posture. I have written about posture before but I feel it is important to re-visit. After all the pain I have been in, I am becoming a bit of a good posture evangelist. This all stems from my thoughts that we can become so blasé about our health. We can only appreciate our health when something goes wrong.

If you work in a manual laboring job, chances are you are much more in tune with your physical health. What I mean by that is if you get a sore back chances are you will be forced to rest it. Or if you injure your arm, again you will be forced to take time to rest it.

More and more people are working in offices and spend most of their days sitting rather than moving. This is a very different world to physical labor but it still puts strain on the body. Backs become sore, tendons in arms and necks become inflamed but people seem to work on despite this. They don’t take the time needed to recover. The problem becomes worse and the worker then suffers from frozen shoulder or other extreme pain.
I am guilty of this too. My inflammation got so bad I couldn't move my fingers!

With all of above in mind, I believe some strategies are needed to maintain your posture at the office. Here are my suggestions:


1. Sit well! See diagram below ... (You can click on it for a larger version)


2. Strengthen your core muscles in your pelvic region –. Try and develop your core muscles – these so called core muscles that help you sit and are found around the pelvic region. You can do this by practicing Pilates, or by sitting on an exercise ball for short periods of time and finally by doing back curls. These will all contribute to increasing your sitting power!



3. Chin retractions - I call these my ugly exercises but if you want to maintain a good postural sense these are essential, so you have to get over worrying what other people think, Sitting up straight, keeping the chin LEVEL, gently pull the chin straight in as if you are hiding against a wall or sideways behind a tree. Your head should not bob up or down. The back of your neck should feel long. The highest point of your body should be the top back or your head. This is a good postural correcting exercise to perform during the day, for example while doing computer work. It counters the tendency most people have in sitting to slip into a forward head posture. See the picture below for an idea of what it should look like.



4. Walking – Simple isn’t it. Walk, walk, walk! It is the exact opposite to the static sitting position you are forced into during the day in the office. Walk at lunch time. Walk during coffee breaks (why sit in the cafeteria when you have already been sitting at your desk. Its all about balancing motion with the sedentary position of working. Walk to health!

I am not a medical professional so before trying any of the above suggestions please consult one!


Good Luck,
Allen