Computer posture problems are prevalent nowadays. Especially with the excessive amount of external factors working against us. In my case, these factors included high-stress jobs, working under fake lights, eating ultra processed foods, and drinking water loaded with chemicals (just to name a few). All these affected my posture in a negative way.
Do posture correctors really work? In my experience, there are pros and cons of using them.
More people are working at their desks with their hands constantly on a keyboard and mouse. On top of that, add looking down at a phone for hours a day (for more info, check out the article I wrote on tech neck prevention).
All of the above variables lead to rounded shoulders, forward head posture, and upper back pain. These types of posture mistakes are very common among computer users.
In this post, I’m going to talk about whether or not posture correctors really work.
Back pain is a serious issue for those of us who work on a computer for long periods of time. I used to suffer from back pain chronically when I sat at a computer 40 hours per week.
There are pros and cons of sit-ups when it comes to lower back pain. I avoid sit-ups when I have the pain. But I do sit-ups to prevent the pain in the future. Image by Katseyephoto via Megapixl.
The back is a very complex muscle group. There are a lot of variables to consider. When the spine is not in a neutral position, the compression forces repetitive strain and overuse injuries much quicker than if we had good posture.
This article will talk about the pros and cons of sit-ups. It’ll also cover some substitute ab exercises I do when I have lower back pain.
Are Sit Ups Bad For Lower Back Pain
It’s also important to be careful in choosing the activities you do. After a long day of sitting, it might be a bad idea to do ab workouts that build core strength. The core muscles definitely need to be strengthened, but I usually did more harm than good when I did core exercises after sitting at a computer all day. Although it may not feel like it, my core muscles work all day long to support my torso at a computer. Working on a computer for long periods of time is an endurance event, regardless if we are sitting or standing. Going straight to a gym after work to do sit up repetition wasn’t the ideal balance for me. I always tried to do my core exercises on days that I wasn’t doing any work on a computer.
Why Is Corrective Exercise Important
As I’ve gotten into my mid-forties, I’ve noticed the lack of muscle growth and activation I was used to when I was younger. That elusive six pack is much harder to achieve as I’ve gotten older. The more I use my core muscles to support my computer posture for long periods of time, the more my abdominal muscles get tighter, weaker, and more deactivated. But these are just more reasons and more motivation to focus on my physical fitness. A huge variable of that is training my abdominal muscles effectively. Improving my core strength hasn’t been an easy task for me. Certain body movements and core exercises have made my back pain worse, sometimes including sit ups and crunches. So today, I’m dedicating this post on how sit ups can affect lower back pain.
Before I fixed my computer posture in 2011, lower back pain took a beating on my quality of life.
My lower back was like the middle of a rope during a tug-of-war. But it wasn’t 2 human teams competing against each other.
Instead, it was my tight upper back and shoulders on one team. The other team was my tight hamstrings and deactivated glutes. And my lower back was being pulled apart, causing hyperextension of multiple muscles.
This article will talk about how a heating pad has helped my lower back pain. But also how it made my pain worse at times.
Heat therapy has helped me with certain types of lower back pain. But its effectiveness depends on the cause of the pain. Improper use can worsen some conditions.
I’m dedicating this post to talk about whether or not heating pads are good for lower back pain (in my experience). Nothing in this article is medical advice. I simply talk about my own personal experience. Do your research. Make good decisions. Talk to a doctor. But be the best advocate for your own healthcare.
Chronic back pain is such a conundrum for me. Especially with my history of poor posture at a computer. It’s never an easy fix.
But I’ve learned to take certain ergonomic steps that prevent working in an awkward position.
This article will talk about my personal experience, how stiff and tight muscles resulted in back pain.
My back pain isn’t always caused by spinal damage. It’s often caused by muscular tension and imbalance.
Because sitting for long hours can lead to tight muscles, which definitely contributed to my back pain.
This post will to talk about how stiff and tight muscles resulted in back pain. It’ll also talk about how I relieve back pain from stiff and tight muscles.
The psoas muscle is very complex. It doesn’t work like a typical muscle. The psoas muscle attaches to multiple vertebrae in the lumbar spine. A typical muscle has a tendon on each end that connects it to a bone. The general psoas muscle is made up of a psoas major and a psoas minor. We have one of these on each side of our spine.
The psoas attaches to multiple lumbar vertebrae, as well as the posterior side of the femurs. Photo by Maubuk77 via Megapixl.
At its highest point, the psoas muscle begins at the lumbar vertebrae. It runs downward through the area of the hip flexors. At its lowest point, the the psoas attaches to a tendon on the back side of our upper leg, which also adds to the complexity of it. The tendons of the psoas all connect in the posterior (back) side of the body. However, the psoas muscle uniquely travels through the anterior (front) side of the body.
How To Sit With Psoas Pain
When the psoas contracts, it allows us to rotate the hip externally. It also gives the ability to life your leg, as well as move it laterally. The psoas muscle is a major force that helps the spine and legs move together effectively. It’s a major force when it comes to any full body movement like running and squatting.
It also provides a large amount of stability that helps us keep our spine and torso upright. This is a crucial variable required to sit for long periods of time with good computer posture. The psoas muscle is one of the few muscle groups that connects our upper body to our lower body. Sitting can affect the psoas muscle because it is very prone to overuse. The average computer worker is at a desk 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week, 2000 hours a year. That’s a massive amount of repetitive strain, regardless if we are sitting with good or poor computer posture. When we sit for long periods of time, it can cause a tight psoas.
Neutral posture ergonomics have been a valuable part of my day to day life since 2011. Before that, I’d make multiple computer posture mistakes. None of my joints were in a neutral position back then. None of them! Not a single one!
Neutral postures have been the foundation of my injury prevention, comfort, and productivity. This is especially true for desk workers, remote employees, and anyone performing repetitive tasks.
This article will talk about my personal experience with neutral posture ergonomics.
Having good posture at a computer is often confused with sitting up straight. Sitting up “too straight” can be a very bad thing. It’s also known as overcorrecting, which is an overlooked posture mistake. And it can cause musculoskeletal disorders just as easily as slouching forward can.
I’m dedicating this post to explain neural posture ergonomics, how to get joints in position, and how much it’s helped improved my physical health, mental clarity, and work productivity.
Symptoms of sciatica can include inflammation, irritation, pain, numbness, or tingling of the sciatic nerve. A number of places could be painful including the back, butt, or legs. In my experience, sciatic pain has ranged anywhere from light discomfort to incredibly sharp, shooting pain.
Sciatica pain is the worst. Photo by Sframe via Megapixl.
Sciatica can become debilitating in extreme cases. It happened to me once. The sciatic pain felt like a knife stuck in my back. I couldn’t walk. I was stuck in bed for almost 2 days. It hurt even to roll over in bed. I ended up going to the emergency room for it. I was out of work for about 10 days.
It’s hard to believe that sitting for long periods of time causes this extreme sciatica pain. My poor sitting position definitely contributed to my shooting pain. There were many reasons. I had an old office chair that didn’t fit me well. I never used a standing desk back then. Also, I would sit for long periods of time without taking breaks. This led to my most overused muscles and tissues lacking blood flow. My lumbar spine was not properly supported. I didn’t have an ergonomic chair that included lumbar support. I never sat with proper posture because I didn’t know how to do it.
Working too long on a computer is the worst. Our bodies were designed to get into that position. But they weren’t designed to stay there long term. Speaking from experience, this results in chronic discomfort and pain.
Ergonomic devices matter for people who use a computer for long periods.
This article talks about ergonomic devices, that’ve helped turn my workstation into an asset that promotes good computer posture.
Poor ergonomics can lead to repetitive stress injuries rsis, back, neck and shoulder pain (just to name a few).
These can lead to lower productivity in the long run, due to physical pain, less energy, and low mental clarity.
Investing in ergonomic equipment, that’s designed to reduce the risk of computer pain, can significantly enhance comfort and performance.
The American office worker spends an average of 40 hours per week sitting at a computer desk. That equals 2,000 hours per year. If someone had a desk job for 20 years, that equals 40,000 hours of loading on the spine in poor sitting postures.
Poor posture can eventually cause injuries if not corrected early on. The sooner these poor sitting postures can be corrected, the less severity of posture related injuries from computer use will occur.
I used to have an office job at a large company. Along with myself, the number of co-workers who were affected by musculoskeletal disorders from computer use was staggering. When I first started my blog, I would get emails from co-workers that I didn’t personally know. But we all sat at the same desks, in the same office, for long periods of time. They would ask for advice or help with their common computer-related injuries. I’d give them my favorite ways that I improved my different sitting postures. Before long, a large percentage of my co-workers were interested. In order to prevent musculoskeletal disorders from computer use, the first step I would recommend is to learn proper sitting posture. That’s why I created a free ebook. You can download it at SittingPosture.com/ebook.
Sitting for a long time can cause computer pain, regardless of what position I’m in. Even if my posture is perfect, pain doesn’t care. It cares about how long I’ve constantly activated my chronically overused postural muscles.
That’s why different sitting positions matter when it comes to comfort, long-term health, back pain prevention, work productivity, mental clarity, and energy levels.
This article will talk about multiple different sitting positions. Some are good for computer work, some are not. Some are good to improve mobility, especially for office workers.
It’s not uncommon for office workers to grind out computer work while long sitting. A similar sitting position is common when they commute to and from work, travel, during leisure time on the couch, the list goes on…
Poor postures often lead to strain or discomfort.
In this article, I’m sharing a round up of specific sitting positions. It’ll also include useful tips on good posture and avoiding pain when sitting.
We use intention and pay attention to the way we move during work hours. We overlook the fact that sleeping in the proper position can also help improve a person’s good posture.
There are many benefits of recovering in a good sleeping position. We rest better, recover better, and wake up feeling refreshed.
Posture happens at our desk. But ergonomics happens in the gym, the kitchen, even in the bedroom.
Sitting with good posture at a computer desk for 8 hours is an endurance event. It takes strength, energy, and balance. The less our sleep quality is, the quicker we get tired the next day. The earlier we get tired in the day, the quicker our good posture turns into bad posture. Conversely, using more healthy sleeping habits will directly improve the posture we have throughout the next work day.
How to Sleep for Better Posture
Sleeping with bad habits can easily cause muscle tension issues and repetitive strain injuries. To improve your sleep quality, practice these good sleeping habits to prepare the body for a good night’s rest and recovery.
How to Choose a Good Pillow
My personal choice of pillow has both a medium density and a medium thickness. It’s not too firm, so it doesn’t feel like I’m resting my head on a hard foam yoga block. It’s also not too soft or too thin, which wouldn’t support my head, neck, and spine correctly. The medium density, medium thickness type of pillow that is ideal for me supports both my neck and head when I’m sleeping on my back. When I sleep on my side, I will fold the same pillow in half, doubling the thickness of the pillow, which is perfect for keeping my neck and spine straight and well supported (which avoids neck pain). We’ll talk more about each sleeping position later in this article.
Does Sleeping Without A Pillow Improve Posture?
I’m going with “no” on this one. I’d never try to sleep without a pillow. I just don’t see how it would keep my neck aligned. I always use the additional support of a pillow.
Even perfect posture can cause pain. It’s not what position we are working in. It’s how long we are working in that exact same position. Because keeping muscles chronically activated causes repetitive strain and overuse injuries.
It’s not uncommon to experience discomfort or pain when we first try to sit or stand up straight. This can make fixing your posture feel counterintuitive. It may lead to confusion about out whether good posture is really healthy, or if it is doing more harm than good.
This article will talk about why good posture hurts. It’ll also cover ergonomic ways to decrease that computer-related pain.
We need to understand that the pain is usually temporary, but can still lead to long term issues. This issues are caused by muscle imbalances, inactivity, or incorrect posture.
Posture correction can help encourage us to fix our posture, despite the pain.
In this article, I’m going to talk about why good posture hurts and how to improve posture without causing pain.
I’ve been practicing something I call “low-toxic living” since January of 2024.
It has to do with minimizing the toxins that get inside my body. It also includes various ways to detoxify, and eliminate, toxins that have been in my body for many years.
I practice low-toxic living for better computer posture.
As office workers, the cards are stacked against us. We work high-stress jobs, while being trapped indoors.
We rarely see the sun, or touch the soil of the Earth. Instead, we touch cars, concrete, and the soles of our shoes.
We work under fake lights, staring into a neon monitor screen, breathing in dust that falls from ceiling tiles, all day long. Standard office culture is a toxic lifestyle.
An office can be full of ergonomic hazards. From fake lights, to fall risks, to outdated devices that are not ergonomically designed.
The employer can do their best to reduce injury risks. But safety in the workplace is ultimately up to us, the end user. We need to be the best advocate possible for our own ergonomic safety.
This article will talk about ways that I protect myself from repetitive strain and overuse injuries (while using a computer).
Ergonomic hazards is one of the most important considerations, when creating a safe and healthy work environment.
And so today, I’m dedicating this post to talk about how you can protect yourself from ergonomic hazards.
I enjoy sharing products with my readers that’ve improved my computer posture, not to mention my quality of life. I’m not compensated by any companies who make the products I’ll mention in this article. I paid my own money for all of them.
This photo contains some of the best computer posture correction devices in my opinion. Photo by Norbert Levajsics via Unsplash.
This article will talk about my favorite computer posture correction devices. 3 of them are beneficial in creating a healthy workstation setup. The other 2 are great recovery devices to use away from your working environment. But they are still directly related to improving your computer posture.
I used to think posture and ergonomics were the same thing. But the more I thought about it, ergonomics doesn’t just happen in the workplace. It goes home with us.
Any healthy habit that I practice, regardless if I’m at work or not, contributes to my overall health and wellness.
Therefore, many of them are variables in my computer ergonomics process.
I have many principles in my ergonomics process. This article will talk about all of them.
Ergonomics is the workplace is important. If I sleep poorly one night, I’ll be tired before 9am the next day. Think about how much that affects my sitting posture. This also explains why I include sleep quality as part of my ergonomics process.
Most adults spend a lot of time in the workplace. An 8-hour workday, 5 days a week, equals about 24% of our week. I want to do everything I can to be as effective as possible during that time.
To help understand that, I’ll talk about the underlying principle of ergonomics in the workplace.
When I graduated university, I couldn’t wait to get a desk job. Back then, working on a computer (to make a living) fascinated me.
I had worked some dirty jobs before I graduated. Waited tables, construction, hard physical labor, overnight shifts…
But after graduation, I could have a career where I sit in a chair and work at a desk? And I don’t have to work nights, or weekends? Sign me up!
This article talks about what caused the desk job pain I used to have. It also lists posture fixes that’ve helped me along the way.
But I had no idea how painful it can be, to sit at a computer 40 hours a week. Poor posture at a computer has caused me more pain than any physical labor job I’ve ever worked.
Sitting for long periods of time used to break me down. Both physically and mentally. It can significantly affect the natural curve of the spine.
One of the most frustrating things to figure out was my chronic back pain. Specifically, located in my lumbar region (lower back).
What is lumbar support and what does it do?
I learned a valuable lesson from my chiropractor years ago. He taught me about the correct position of a neutral spine. And how important it was to maintain the natural curves of the spine, especially when in a sitting posture.
Using lumbar support is a helpful way for me to maintain ergonomics when sitting in the workplace.
In this article, I’m going to talk about what lumbar support does. And how much it improves posture in my experience.
Working on a computer for too long used to break me down, both physically and mentally. My chair and desk were a liability. Because they weren’t set up for proper ergonomics. And that led to a number of aches and pains in different parts of my body.
This article talks about how I fixed my computer wrist pain. Surprisingly, it only took a few simple changes.
Carpal tunnel syndrome is one of the common effects of prolonged computer use. It’s commonly referred to as wrist and hand pain from typing.
In this article, I’m sharing a round up of ergonomic modifications I made, to reduce the risk of developing carpal tunnel syndrome.
