Sitting

Modern jobs and careers require many of us to be seated at a desk for over 10 to 12 hours every single day. This is usually followed by more sitting, after work, at home (hunched over a PC, watching TV, eating dinner…) which adds up to a considerable amount of time on a daily basis. Sitting itself is not bad for your body, and neither is slouching. However, the real problem begins when your body is stuck in the same position throughout the day. Your joints and muscles acclimate to the poor form you are seated in, and this leads to serious problems down the line. Most people do this for years, even decades, at a time, and do not realize that there is a problem until the pain gets too severe and requires medical attention. This can be especially harmful to people with certain genetic predispositions to musculoskeletal diseases.

To initially learn about how muscles weaken when constrained to one position, it’s useful to develop a visual analogy. Muscles always cross some joint while connecting to a minimum of 2 bones. They can be lengthened or tightened through stretching and exercising, respectively. For example, by exercising the biceps, you will over time, shorten the muscle and increase the resting muscle tone. It may help to thing of the muscle like a piece of rope, with the end goal being to get the piece of rope to its ideal length, through lengthening and tightening (with the means being exercise and stretching). With neglect and sedentary lifestyle habits, these “ropes” lose their length and tightness, requiring effort (in the form of exercise and stretching) to bring them back to their ideal state.

The graphic above shows some common postures when sitting at a desk. As mentioned earlier, the muscles and tendons adapt to the conditions to which they are placed in – in the case of incorrect postures, the muscles and tendons begin to support the resulting musculoskeletal imbalances, leading to a variety of health problems down the line that could even comprise mental health and digestive issues. If we take the second incorrect posture, with the individual hunched over the desk, the thoracic (abdominal) region of the erector spinae muscles will hyperextend (over lengthen) and weaken. This is because A) The muscles are being stretched constantly, without any compression and B) They are not being exercised to shorten them to their ideal length. Remember that rope analogy from earlier? You can use it to visualize what’s happening here. Another issue is that the ligaments covering the spine will loosen on the posterior (back) side of the spine from being over-stretched. This could result in disc-related issues down the line, not a pretty sight to think about, let alone experience.

When you sit at a compute for prolonged periods of time, the following things are going on in your body:

1. There is extensive posterior pelvic tilt. This is seen in the image below, and can be described as the end range-of-motion if you performed a hip thrust, or tried to hump something while standing.
2. Your lower and upper back muscles are in flexion, where the spine is curved backwards at a great angle and looks like the left parenthesis -> (
3. Your shoulders are positioned vertically over your thighs, and not over the pelvis, where they should be
4. Your head is extended far over your thighs, instead of being in line with your shoulders, placing excessive stress on your neck
5. Your forearms are pronated (rotated internally) to an excessive degree, applying unnecessary stress to your joints and tendons
6. Your iliacus and psoas (muscles comprising the hip flexors) are in a hyperextended position

This means that your body will adapt to the posture and muscular positions noted above. Below, a picture presents the effects of posterior and anterior tilt on the pelvic complex:

What does all of this mean for you?

1. The posterior pelvic tilt has been shown to contribute to chronically tight hamstrings, due to the shortened position they are subjected to
2. The natural inward curvature of your spine is reduced, and results in a more “flat” lower back. This causes thoracic stiffness, and forces your pelvis into posterior tilt when standing
3. The flexion in the upper back muscles translates into excessive kyphosis while standing – have you seen Quasimodo? Yeah, that’s not a very attractive outcome. In addition to the slightly unattractive posture, excessive kyphosis has been known to cause shoulder impingement, chronic headaches, and additional issues that would seriously detract from the quality of your life.
4. The shoulders are positioned over the thighs, instead of over the pelvis, which contributes to a kyphotic posture in combination with the upper back flexion. This means A) your upper trapezius muscles are very shortened, and overactive to the point of being engaged with any arm movement and B) your levator scapulae is overstretched, which could result in migraines and neck pain down the line. The quick fix would be to massage these areas, but that’s not as sustainable as fixing the root cause altogether.
5. Your psoas and iliacus muscles, are going to become weak from constantly being in a relaxed position. This means that your your knees and pelvis are not positioned directly over your ankles, but rather in front of them. Your upper body compensates for this forward position by leaning backwards, putting your hip flexors into an elongated position, similar to what happens when sitting down.

Having read this, how do you fix all of this?

To be fair, this post makes strong generalizations about how the average human’s body responds to a sedentary lifestyle. You may not be the average human. You could play sports, be old, be fat, have joint disease…anything other than typical to be honest. It’s entirely possible that some individuals’ bodies will react in the exact opposite way to what is expected from doing corrective exercises. That situation is far from ideal. I don’t wan’t you to injure yourself when the purpose of this blog is to live a healthier, higher quality life.

For now, the best thing to possibly do is to massage your back, using a foam roller, the efforts of a close friend or family member, or by getting a deep tissue massage. Another test can be done by lying on your back, on a hardwood floor. Have a friend try to fit their fingers underneath your lower back, when you are relaxed. If the fingers don’t fit, you may have a slight degree of lordosis. If they are able to get a tennis ball under there, that’s a very big issue…That being said, this sitting issue applies to everybody, athlete or not. We all sit, meaning our body has gotten used to and good at sitting. You need to have this fact in mind before coming up with a corrective/rehab plan to get the best results.

Shown below is a picture of stretches that help you deal with lower back pain and tightness in the lower back muscles:

Sources:

1. https://exrx.net/Kinesiology/Posture
2. https://www.t-nation.com/training/neanderthal-no-more-1 (Parts 1-4)