“Sit up straight.” Or, “Use good posture”. We’ve heard things like this a million times. But what do they really mean? How do we really do it? And what are the specific cues? This article talks about a minimalistic way to improve your posture while sitting at a computer. Poor posture and ergonomics take a lot of work to correct. The human body is a complex system. But, that doesn’t mean we can’t simplify the sitting process as much as possible.
Whether you work at home or in an office, it takes a few simple changes and a lot of commitment to improve your posture. This article won’t apply to working at a stand desk. We’ll cover that another time. This article will cover how to improve your posture while sitting in an office chair for long periods of time.
Nothing in this article is professional medical advice. I write about my experience and what habits worked best to improve my posture and ergonomics. Be the best advocate possible for your own healthcare. Do your research, make good decisions, and get professional medical advice from a doctor when necessary.
How to Improve Computer Posture
Keep the spine “stacked” in an “S curve”
spine from a side angle
The most important way I decreased my neck and back pain was to learn about the natural curvature in the spine. The spine is not straight up and down. That’s why “sit up straight” is not good advice at all. This advice could cause someone to overextend their spine, which can be just as damaging as sitting slumped over with an overcompressed spine. I like to say that every position related to posture falls under 1 of 3 categories. I just mentioned the first two, which are overextended and overcompressed.
These are both incorrect categories of sitting posture and ergonomics. The third and final position is what I describe as balanced. This is a comfortable, neutral position in between overextended and overcompressed. I’ve learned through my experience with poor posture, that whether a position is overextended or overcompressed, it led me to issues with shoulders and neck and back pain that was very tough to correct over long periods of time.
Instead of saying, “sit up straight”, the correct terminology would be “sit with your spine stacked in an S curve”. This would be good advice to help someone get into a balanced, neutral position. My shoulders and neck also felt a lot better once I increased my body awareness and learned more about the natural curvature of the spine.
Keep the lower back arched naturally forward
This arch in the lower back is called the lumbar curve. This tip is a component of the first tip, which is keeping an S curve throughout the spine. There are 3 main segments of the spine. The medical names for them are cervical, thoracic, and lumbar. When it comes to sitting posture and ergonomics, I believe the lumbar is the most important one to make sure it’s in a balanced, neutral position. The lumbar area is the lowest of the 3 areas of the spine. It is a base of support for the other two.
Make sure your hips are slightly higher than your knees
I’m 6’3″ tall. At one point, there was a time where I sat in an office chair that was way too short for me. Even when the chair was extended all the way up, it was still too short for me. This caused my hips to be below my knees. Sitting for a living caused my hip muscles to tighten and shorten up in general, but this poor posture position exponentially increased my hip tension. Sitting with my hips below my knees also put more pressure on my gluts, which caused them to become tighter and more deactivated over long periods of time. From my experience, the importance of height is crucial when it comes to ergonomic office chairs.
Keep your ankles either directly under your knees or slightly ahead of them
While I was using the same office chair from the above paragraph that was too short for me, it caused me to sit with my ankles behind my knees. This caused my hamstrings to be overcompressed and my quads to overextend. Before I realized this mistake, I never knew how active my leg muscles were while sitting in a poor posture. I corrected this mistake by putting my ankles slightly ahead of my legs. Once this happened, my legs were in a less activated, but much more balanced, neutral position.
The right photo correctly shows the ankles slightly ahead of the knees.
Do not cross your legs or feet
I also used to make the mistake of not keeping my feet flat on the floor. My heels were off the ground. The only part of my feet that was touching the floor was my toes. Sometimes my feet were even crossed. Over long periods of time, this caused my calves to be overcompressed in a big way. These mistakes helped me learn how important it was to keep my feet flat on the floor in a balanced, neutral position.
Keyboard, mouse, and desk should be level with your elbows
When I sat too low in my chair, it caused my desk to be too high. My elbows were below the desk, which caused me to bend my wrists and flare my elbows out to the sides (away from my upper body). Moving these items level with my elbows allowed me to keep my wrists straight on the desk, not bent. Once I found this correct, balanced, neutral position, it eliminated a lot of shoulders and neck pain for me.
Download a free Computer Posture Checklist
The 6 above tips in this article come from my Computer Posture Checklist (pdf file). The checklist contains 8 additional steps not mentioned here. There are 14 total steps in all to improve your posture while sitting in an office chair at a computer. A few years ago, I took full accountability of my poor posture habits. Once I corrected my posture and ergonomics, I created this checklist made up of the minimal amount of steps that will make the biggest improvements. These steps helped me decrease pain and dysfunction, while increasing energy, mental clarity, and productivity.
Click here to download a free copy of my Computer Posture Checklist
It’s not our fault that sitting for a living with poor posture is destroying our bodies and minds. However, it is our responsibility to make sure we minimize the negative effects and damage. It’s not just about using strength while holding our posture. There’s a lot of balance and technique involved.
Holding our muscles and tendons with repetitive strain for long periods of time is the enemy, not necessarily the poor posture and ergonomics we use while sitting. However, the first step is to improve your posture while sitting in an office chair. Then, we can explore how to work in other good posture positions like standing or sitting on a stool at a stand desk. Any of the same position we are in 40 hours per week can cause pain and dysfunction (even if it is good posture).
That’s why it’s important to work in different positions throughout the day. It’s also beneficial to look at other aspects of wellness and how they can help improve your posture. Hydration, breathing, and sleeping are all important factors when trying to improve your posture at a computer. Click on each of the words above if you’d like to read an article I wrote about each topic.
The below picture is a sneak peak of the first 7 out of 14 easy habits on my Computer Posture Checklist. You can download the whole checklist at SittingPosture.com/checklist. It’s also great for posting a printed copy at your desk as a consistent reminder to improve your posture.
If you’re still reading this, thank you for your time and energy. You’re taking accountability for your poor posture and ergonomics. That is a huge step and you should be very proud of that. We need to make multiple small, easy changes to our daily positions. Once we make these changes, committing and turning them into good habits will improve your posture in a major way, just like I improved mine.
If this article was helpful, check out my book titled “45 Ways to Improve Computer Posture.” It’s available in both digital and paperback versions.
>>> Click here to pick up your copy
This book explains how to improve your posture through different variables of health and wellness. These include sitting posture, standing posture, sleep, hydration, and breathing. Poor posture is not just how we sit at a computer. The health habits we practice, 24 hours a day, are directly related to how good (or bad) our computer posture is.
Go to SittingPosture.com/book to learn more.
Take care,
Todd Bowen
P.S. You can sign up for my free computer posture newsletter here.