Ask HN: How do you prevent slouching at your desk? I have a bit of a problem with slouching. I often catch myself leaning closer and closer towards the computer screen, especially when I'm on my laptop, and this does quite a number on my back and shoulders. How can I maintain good posture when I'm working on my laptop or desktop, without setting up a ridiculous treadmill desk? Thanks guys. |
Squat, deadlift.
I do sit on one when I am home though. If not, I find myself almost laying down in my chair reading the internets.
Here are a few tips:
1. Use a lumbar roll -- you place this in your lower back and it forces you to maintain a lordosis (curve of the spine) by keeping it in position. This will be tiring for the first couple of weeks, but eventually it will feel natural.
Here is a link to a lumbar roll similar to what I've used: http://www.amazon.com/Original-McKenzie-D-Section-700-Lumbar...
2. Monitor height -- you want your monitor to be positioned so that you are looking straight ahead, rather than down, towards your monitor. If you are forced to look down there is a better chance of leaning forward instead of maintaing good posture.
If you're using a laptop, consider buying a laptop stand to increase the height of the laptop. http://www.amazon.com/AliMed-Smart-Stand-Laptop/dp/B003T1LWW...
If you can't get your monitor high enough relative to your position, you'll need a taller desk. -------------------------------------------------------
Those are my two biggest tips, but there are others:
Chairs are not made equal... different chairs have definite discrepancies in the amount of pain they cause me on a day to day basis. Even expensive ones will send shooting pains down my leg within a few hours of sitting in them. If you can test some new chairs out for a day or two at a time, I'd recommend doing so.
Get up, walk, and/or stretch regularly for a couple of minutes. At work I use a small cup for water, which requires me to refill every 45 minutes or so. A quick 2 minute walk to the water tank for a fill-up is a refreshing break for our backs.
Just another data point: This hasn't affected my drinking habits in other areas.
And working at home (or in a startup you run, I guess) means you can do things to help your health and productivity even if they might seem ridiculous, like take naps and walk while you type. Yet another reason I don't see myself ever having a 'normal' job again. (And most people seem to think my treadmill desk is pretty cool, fwiw.)
There really i no ergonomic way to use a laptop that doesn't involve at least one of an external keyboard or screen.
Amen. Laptops have lousy ergonomics. Get an external keyboard, and/or a portable external keyboard, and/or find some way to prop up the screen, and/or get an external monitor.
(At the further risk of alienating everyone younger than me; I'm only barely old enough to remember records, and never actually owned any...)
Get a standing desk. No slouch. Good stuff. Treadmill gizmo is completely unnecessary.
I expect this advice only applies to exercises done on your feet with free weights, such as squatting and overhead pressing, not to bench pressing or machine work.
When I don't get up and switch, I frequently do have problems, like I threw out my shoulder leaning on the couch while reading the NaNoWriMo forums last night. Vegging out can be hazardous to your health...
http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/images/solo-ascent-90_512x390.jp...
(My cardboard/duct tape clone cost $4, about 50x less than the official version.)
As for posture itself, there is no simple answer. The way you sit, the placement of your peripherals, how much time you spend sitting, these are all factors. In order, then, and in brief:
Rolling your hips forward pushes the spine up. This is fundamental, literally. Try a sitting position where your legs decline from your butt at a downward angle. Sitting "indian style" on a decline is a good place to start (or the "beaver" stretch position, with flat feet together. Obviously, your average chair is not conducive to this. ALternatively, you could sit on a pillow on the floor. You can sit with the lower half of your ass off a flat chair, with legs tucked under, but it is not the best for circulation.
Your workspace is all important. If you're a pro programmer, it's worth every effort to make your workshop (or command center, if you prefer) as close to some ideal as possible. For instance, putting your monitor above the parallel plane of vision is probably a big deal. Parallel plane = straight ahead. Ergo(nomically): you should look upward to your monitor. This will encourage your posture.
Again, since maintaining the position is actual work itself, it follows that your should take regular breaks, stand up, walk away (or pace), return after a few minutes, and get back to work. This also helps circulate blood. A programmer I work with espouses the Pomodoro Technique, which is a time-on/time-off regimen for deep cycle work flow. The effect is you set a timer, and follow basic rules without fail. It's also good for your eyes to to turn away from the screen every 45 minutes.
Bonus: breathing is life. Breathe deep for a deeper life. Regulate breath, keep yourself extra-oxygenated. This is good for awareness and staves off fatigue, which are critical for not recessing down into a slouch.
All the ergonomics guidelines I've seen recommend looking slightly downward at your monitor. See the main image here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergonomics
> Breathe deep for a deeper life.
What the hell does that mean?
I've also change my interface fonts... My monospace font has gone to a 12 point Monofur, which makes a very readable font imo, and for my normal font I've moved to a 14 point Verdana. I have also found putting my chair higher made a HUGE difference.
high contrast white-on-black and green-on-black works better for me than other color schemes, so that's one big thing.
Sitting up straight solved the cat issue. Maybe a cat will solve your slouch issue.
http://www.amazon.com/Treat-Your-Back-Robin-McKenzie/dp/0958...
It feels good for my back, but everybody is different.
Rowing is great for strengthening the core and for stretching the back. I "row with Xeno" http://www.row2go.us/
"Belly button to the spine, chest up, shoulders down."
Any chance you might have some reference to where you read that? I'd be interested in seeing how they did the study and what sort of results they came up with.
Not a link to the source but a decent article surmising the findings.
The article was called "Get Off Your Ass" and ran in Bicycle magazine probably about two years ago. I'll see if I can find it when I get home this evening so you can decide how credible you think it is.
So far the best suggestions seem to be to use a nada-chair and a laptop stand + light external keyboard.
Also, tell your optometrist about this. It really sounds like something is wrong with your vision.
Like a Macbook maybe?
I've never understood how people work around those sharp edges for extended periods of time. Do your palms build some kind of protective layer after a while?
Next on my home list is to buy either a laptop stand or get a good monitor+stand.
The hardest thing I found was maintaining the right balance: avoiding locking the knees, and not shifting weight primarily to one leg or the other, which would give me hip pain.
To relieve the pain, I eventually found myself leaning more and more of my weight on the desk (which was only slightly below by elbows), and I'd have to catch myself and stand back up straight again.
Moving back to a normal desk and Aeron chair, I was in giddy heaven for the first week, it was that wonderful.
As my friend put it - "Standing desk doesn't mean you're only standing. It just gives you the option to stand or sit."
That rant over with (sorry, again), I just went to the local hardware store and got some cinder blocks. The price difference (~$7 for the cinder blocks versus ~$1000 for a height-adjustable desk frame) was worth the slight lack of convenience. That, and without the adjustability, I won't be tempted to just leave the desk in the 'down' position.
I'm a part-time stander; perhaps 25 hours per week. I also sit, recline, and every once in a while decadently lounge while reading super-important work email on my iPad. Still, I've been standing a lot for many months, so I can look back and observe:
* It takes a few weeks to feel right. I'm far past that, and I feel much less tired after standing most of the day, than sitting all day.
* Standing a lot is really not a big deal. Lots of people work on their feet all day. Every day. See the above comments about ancestors.
* It is probably possible to develop all manner of trouble by standing too still. I wouldn't know; I am essentially incapable of standing still. I shift around continuously as I work.
* It is indeed very helpful to have the monitor high enough to look straight at it; this has totally removed the incentive to slouch.
I have the VIP accessory which lifts each half 15 degrees, but that's still pretty far from 90.
I've reduced that pain by using a vertical layout keyboard.
The text, in case that link dies:
"No one wants to be a slouch, but it turns out that might just be what's best for your back if you're bound to a desk all day. That's right: Although you've been admonished all your life to "sit up straight," the healthiest posture seems to be considerably more laid-back - 135 degrees back, in fact. When researchers in Scotland and Canada scanned the backs of 22 healthy men and women as they assumed three sitting postures - sitting straight at a 90-degree angle, hunching forward, and leaning back 135 degrees - they were surprised to find that the spine was actually least stressed in the laid-back position. The worst? Sitting ramrod-straight created the most disc movement and strain on the spine.
"Sitting unsupported puts more pressure and stress on your lumbar spine than standing," says Scott L Blumenthal, M.D., a spine surgeon at the Texas Back Institute. Relieve the pressure by sitting in a chair with good lumbar support, so it's easy to maintain the natural curvature in your lower back."
Source: March 2009 issue of Bicycle Magazine. I think this is covered by fair-use.
Good for back, bad for neck...
http://www.amazon.com/HumanScale-Freedom-Chair-Headrest-Fabr...
Trying to sit up straight makes my shoulders hunch up. Slouching lets my shoulders and arms relax. Sitting on a hard unpadded chair is good too.
I think that helps me focus more, and it's probably one reason that I don't get sore from standing in one spot. Others may experience different results.
However, I did have someone with a Ph.D. in kinesiology (I think?) tell me that there's essentially no evidence of knee, hip, or back dysfunction in developing countries where people don't sit all day.
Here's a somewhat nutty article on it called "third world squat": http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/sports_body_trai... but it is an actual thing that people and it makes for a different muscle development than chair-dwellers have.
