Sukie Baxter

Do you have terrible computer posture?

Whether sitting or standing, working all day at a computer can really be a pain in the neck — and the rest of your back, too. If you find yourself rubbing your aching shoulders or nursing a stiff lower back after a full day of peering at screens, you’re in good company.

A hundred years ago, most people were still living a largely agricultural lifestyle full of physical activity. But over the past century, labor has shifted to favor office settings where about eighty percent of work hours are sedentary.

All that sitting and staring at screens is resulting in a lot of terrible posture. Not only is the dreaded computer hunch unattractive, it also strains your spine and causes major backaches.

Fortunately, you don’t have to quit your job and become a forest ranger to escape the computer posture epidemic. By making just a few quick ergonomic tweaks, you can alleviate backaches and prevent future evenings laid up on the couch nursing your sore muscles with a heating pad (and let’s be honest, a stiff drink).

Here are five common computer posture mistakes and how to fix them quickly:

1. Hunching Your Shoulders

Shoulders are the darlings of good posture. Nothing says confident and relaxed like having your shoulders back and down.

But, of course, if relaxed shoulders are posture’s superhero, computers are their arch nemesis. Staring at a glowing rectangle all day has an uncanny way of causing your whole back to round forward so that your shoulders are hunched up by your ears.

Not great. Also, not comfortable. But there is actually an easy fix for this one — and it isn’t about pulling your shoulders back and pinning them in place.

Instead, we’re going to make a tiny adjustment to your alignment. Your shoulder blades rest on your rib cage, and when your chest is sunken (as happens when one sits in front of computers all day), it pulls your shoulders forward, too.

Try this: put one hand on your chest just below your collar bones. Lift your chest up and forward (the forward is especially important or you might find yourself leaning too far back).

Notice that when you lift your chest, your shoulders automatically shift backward without you having to hold them there.

Brilliant!

2. Sitting on A Too-Short Chair

Sitting is a scourge, no doubt. It tightens hip muscles and causes lipids to coagulate in your blood. While we all know that sitting isn’t great for us, modern life is filled with chairs, and standing isn’t always practical.

There are things you can do to mitigate the negative effects of too many hours spent sitting, and the most important of these is to raise the height of your chair seat so that your hips are a bit higher than your knees.

Having your hips about two inches above the level of your knees helps to keep your spine straight with less effort. When your chair seat is too low, it forces your pelvis into a backward tilt.

That translates to a rounded spine that mirrors the shape of a banana — not good for back health.

Try this: raise the height of your chair seat until your hips are positioned two inches higher than your knees when your feet are flat on the floor.

Notice how your lower back straightens automatically in this position.

3. Tucking Your Feet Up Under Your Chair

Sitting is all about relaxing, right? That’s why we do it — to take the weight off of our feet.

Only, you kind of need your feet when sitting, too. According to Marc Hamilton, an inactivity researcher at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, the electrical activity in your muscles drops to zero when you sit.

That means that your legs turn into flaccid noodles, enzymatic activity dwindles, and good cholesterol levels plummet. Yikes!

Some of the most powerful muscles of your body are in your hips and legs. Keeping them lightly engaged assists your core muscles in supporting your spine.

Try this: put your feet flat on the floor (with your chair seat positioned higher than your knees, of course). Lean forward and backward a few inches. Then, tuck your feet up under your chair and try the same thing.

You’ll notice that having your feet flat on the floor absorbs some of the shifting weight of your torso, taking a lot of strain off of your back and core muscles.

4. Sitting on A Too-Soft Chair

While the overstuffed recliner in the corner may beckon to your need for comfort, trust me on this. Your spine will be a lot happier if you sit on a firm surface rather than something that sucks you in like quicksand.

Like the foundation of a house, your pelvis needs a firm base of support in order to maintain good alignment. You wouldn’t build your house on shaky ground and then spend all your time bracing the ever-collapsing walls.

The same is true for your body.

Try this: choose a chair with a firm enough seat to give you a solid foundation — the flatter the better. Beware of “ergonomically shaped” seats as they rarely work for every body type. It’s best to start with a flat, fairly firm base and add bolsters as necessary.

Avoid sitting on stability balls. They’re too squishy. Of course, some padding over the support is fine to alleviate the pressure on your sitting bones. Don’t go too crazy with it, though.

5. Sitting on Your Tailbone

Speaking of soft and squishy chairs, most people have spent so much time sitting on overstuffed sofas that they have no idea how not to sit on their tailbone.

Squishy chairs rock your pelvis backward, putting all of your weight on your sacrum — the bottom-most bone of your spine (well, almost, your coccyx is technically below that, but we’ll just call it all one bone for now).

You’ll know if you’re sitting with your tail tucked under if you feel pressure — and pain — in your lower back while sitting. Another way to check your alignment is to look at your posture from the side (have a friend snap a photo).

Try this: if your spine is shaped like a banana, rock your pelvis forward until you feel pressure on the two pointy bones at its base. These are called your “sitting” bones and should be where your weight is centered.

When you’re properly balanced on your pelvis, you should find it easy to sit up straight and keep your shoulders over your hips.

The Bottom Line

It’s no secret that computer posture isn’t great for our health. But since desk jobs are just part of reality, these five tips will help you keep your posture — and your spine — in tip-top shape.

But if you’re really suffering from the damaging effects of poor computer posture, you need the Posture Rehab system. It’s a complete body overhaul designed to make lasting changes to posture by addressing movement habits.

Click here to learn more >>

Recently, I received an interesting email from a potential client. The subject read: “Do you work with fat bodies?”

And it got me thinking.

(The answer, by the way, is an unequivocal yes, absolutely, 100%. I work with all bodies in a judgement-free setting.)

Most posture advice tells you…

• To build core strength.
• To stand tall and pull your shoulders back.
• To tuck your stomach in.

And to lose weight if you’re more than 20 pounds heavier than you “should” be.

(As measured by an arbitrary chart from some mouldering textbook, of course.)

So, what I’m about to say might be pretty controversial. But I believe it’s my responsibility to tell you the truth.

Here goes…

You do not need to lose weight to improve your posture.

You do not need to lose weight to get rid of back pain.

You do not need to be skinnier to feel healthy in your body.

Will Weight Loss Improve Your Posture?

It seems that we’re awash in a sea of conventional wisdom which decrees that weight loss will magically improve your posture.

The thinking goes something like this:

Too much weight strains joints. Abdominal muscles cannot contract when there is belly fat present. Core strength suffers. Posture sags. You wind up a crumpled up hunchback.

Oof. Sorry, but this is a load of crap.

While researching for this article, I came across a multitude of blogs and websites — many of which were written by medical professionals — proffering postural absurdities such as:

• Your abdominal muscles cannot contract when you have belly fat
• The spine can’t move when there is fat around your midsection
• Fat pulls your body downward, forcing you to slouch

Seriously?

Can you dance like this?

Don’t tell me spines can’t move when there’s fat around them.

Certainly, this notion is deeply rooted in bias.

Let me hand the mic over to Christine Kent, author of Saving the Whole Woman:

“A strange and destructive body-dysphoria predominates in modern exercise and therapy systems, which I believe has its roots in white male supremacy. It is probably no accident that the physical culture of male body-building coincided with European and American hunters and anthropologists bringing back photographic images of native bodies. The most obvious way to distance themselves from ‘savages’ was to abhor the native belly…

…by the 1930s control of the abdominal wall was the reigning paradigm in western culture and medicine. While Joseph Pilates proclaimed the value of extreme abdominal exercise, physical therapists Henry and Florence Kendall defined a 90-degree backward rotation of the pelvis as ‘neutral.’ Today, male body-dysphoria continues to reign supreme in  yoga studios, gymnasiums, and physical and manual therapies.”

So.

Will losing weight improve your posture?

I would have to say no.

Now, I’m not a doctor. I’m not even going to touch the controversy over health and weight. That’s not my wheelhouse.

But posture and movement? You’d better believe I’ve got some things to say.

The Fallacy of Fitness and Health

I have many clients who, by all standards, would be considered fit. They do everything from Crossfit to yoga (and often both).

They are strong. They are lean.

And they have pain.

They come to me — as everyone does — to improve their posture and movement.

So if losing weight and getting stronger and having a core of steel were the secret to perfect posture, wouldn’t you assume these folks would have it dialed in?

I’d say so. They’re doing all the “right” things.

And that’s where it gets interesting. Because we’ve been sold a truth that may not really be functional…

That getting “in shape” will make us healthier.

We are told:

• Sitting is the new smoking.
• Focus on core strength.
• Squeeze your glutes, tuck your pelvis, hold your shoulders back.

Funny, but sitting doesn’t seem to cause modern hunter gatherers much pain — in spite of the fact that they spend about the same number of hours per day sitting (ten, in case you’re curious) as most Americans.

Listen…

How you do something is more important than what you actually do.

i.e. how you sit matters more than that you sit. How you walk matters more than that you are walking. (Yes, there are different ways to walk.)

And so on and so forth.

In short:

Dysfunctional movement patterns are dysfunctional no matter how strong or lean or fat you are.

Don’t Just Stand There! Improve Your Posture through Movement

Now, please don’t misunderstand me and think that I’m telling you to just sit around on your sofa snarfing Cheetos all day. Aside from the danger of permanently orange-stained fingertips, a sedentary lifestyle isn’t healthy.

Movement is good. Strength training is highly beneficial. We all need more of both.

However.

We’ve got a problem when it comes to posture. And that problem is that most people think it’s this static pose that you hold when sitting.

Movement, on the other hand, is thought to be distinct from posture. A whole other paradigm.

But the reality is that posture and movement are so intrinsically linked as to be functionally inseparable.

Movement is a part of posture. Posture is the shape your body holds while you’re doing a movement. They’re one and the same.

Posture is just as much a medium of expression as it is clinical, antiseptic alignment. Your posture will reveal all kinds of things about you in this current moment — mood, confidence, comfort in your body, etc.

Posture is akin to body language. You cannot separate either from the rest of a person.

Here’s the truth:

A focus on movement will improve your posture by default.

The better your body moves, the more easily it can be comfortably at rest.

Weight and Movement: The Bottom Line

Back to weight loss for a moment…

Many people are told: lose weight to improve your posture and pain.

But as I mentioned, this is a concept deeply rooted in racial and gender bias.

I have clients of all shapes and sizes who are able to improve posture and pain without losing weight. Your weight has no actual bearing on your ability to move your body (see video, above).

The bottom line…

If losing weight makes you feel better, and it’s something that you want to do, then you should do that.

If losing weight does not make you feel better, makes your pain worse, loads you with guilt, interferes in your relationships, and impinges on your social life, then you should not make yourself lose weight because someone else says it’s the right thing to do.

Focus not on what your body weighs, but how it feels. If you can’t move well, start there. But don’t assume that losing weight will fix your movement — it won’t.

A Radical Approach to Improve Your Posture

I am a Posture and Movement Specialist, but I don’t believe in good posture. That’s a pretty bold thing to say.

But hear me out…

What I have found over the years is that your body is smart. Super smart.

Bodies are like water. They want to find the path of least resistance.

Your body naturally wants to find neutral alignment — a place where it can rest, relax and feel at ease.

Good posture is not what you have been led to believe — a hyper-strict, rigid pose that you must strain to maintain.

Rather, good posture results from removing the tension in your body that impedes your body’s innate intelligence.

This is kind of a revolutionary approach, folks. It turns the whole posture conversation on its head.

But here’s why I think it’s important…

• This approach is kinder to your body. It’s easier to maintain. It rests on the foundation of relaxation over tension. People, we do not need to be more tense. We’re good there.
• This approach takes into account the whole person. It does not treat your body as a dumb object, but rather an intelligent system. And it circumvents white, patriarchal norms regarding bodies.
• This approach creates a foundation of safety and security so that your muscles can actually relax — and so can your brain. Because your brain is also tissue. Tension doesn’t just affect muscles. It also constricts your mind.
• This approach prioritizes your body’s individual intelligence rather than applying a general standard to everyone. One size fits all never works for anyone at all.
• This approach does not give you another thing to do. It teaches your body a whole new way to be.

And this approach is what I teach in my Posture Rehab course.

Because when your movement is unlimited, so is your potential.

And that’s what I want for you.

Click here to enroll >>

All bodies in all conditions, shapes, and sizes welcome.