3. Sitting.

Not only are our bodies designed to withstand all kinds of stress, we are built stronger when we do. Our bones, muscles, tendons, ligaments and other connective tissues are formed, in part, by the workload we put through them. In the western world, this workload has changed significantly over the years to include less locomotion, less inconvenience, less time waiting, less labouring and playing on two feet. In its place, more of being employed, entertained, taught and carted around on our butts. As we become more accustomed to these modern configurations of life, we continue to be made stronger by and for the shapes and postures we occupy; only, our strength is headed in a more sedentary direction than ever before. We are able to tolerate inactivity, to a point of altering the ability of joints, spines, and body parts to move well or at all, we are reorienting our heads, necks, torsos, pelvises, hips and feet to better accomodate the chair than we do uneven terrain. While it’s easiest to see how these, or any adaptations are affecting us when we find ourselves hurting, there are some things we can look at that might help us better honour our anatomy as we navigate the 21st century life before we ever have to arrive to pain.

When we are standing, we are being actively balanced over our feet without any need for conscious control over our parts. Even the most unsteady or the newly biped among us aren’t commanding the major body weights of the head, chest and pelvis to be poised one atop the other and yet everything is working to do so. Sitting, however, eliminates the need for legs to perform their support function, abandoning the powered-down pelvis to stand in as the major base of support for *the segmented tentpole of the human spine. In this position, maintaining a healthy and balanced posture for the spine is possible, though, only with active recruitment. Our hip flexors need to be called on to steady the lumbars forward so we can lift our chest without creating compression further upstream and the tissues of the neck need to work actively to counteract the push of the head forward. If we are not taught how to find this easy balance, it is understandable how many end up surrendered to gravity with parts sliding into the path of least resistance; here, we no longer participants of sitting, we have succumb to the pull towards the slump, the slouch, the human cashew.

We mustn’t forget that it is natural for the human form to assume a very many number of positions and the slump is a shape as useful as any. In candid expression of defeat, in sitting heavy-hearted at the end of the bed, to nestle perfectly into the arms of a mother, to perform the flawless forward roll, to skillfully avoid the snapping towel, or when crawling under the table to collect your cat, we slump because it is a shape best fit for these occasions. The hazard of the slump or sitting isn’t that it is unnatural for our spines but that we misunderstand posture as a static reality and subsequently, miss the opportunity to use it as intended : dynamically.

There is also the following predicament : Even those ergonomically designed chairs, the kind that boast of comfort and come optimistically padded in all the seemingly sensible places have addressed all but the most crucial detail in attempting to support the spine : The spine is a spring. It is made to intuitively manoeuvre the many different shapes your body makes, not by taking any single static position but by listening for and responding to the varying forces it is subject to. In response to the motion filled life, the spine is designed to change seamlessly between stiffening to absorb impact, softening to allow for motion, resisting pressure, generating power, transferring incredible amounts of energy and all the while, rehydrate itself between these jobs for the sake of endurance. Held in place by the padded seats of the ‘state of the art’ office chair, this interplay between our bodies and our environments is silenced. Our bodies are left confined to play by the rules dictated by the inanimate object beneath us and while the short term gain of this silence divorces our body from our attention is to give preference to the work in front of us, given enough time, this proclivity turns to habit and the direction of our formation away from self-awareness may lead us to neglect our bodies until a time it is impossible to continue in this way.

When we are approach posture as yet another expression of the person making it manifest, we can transcend the need to subjugate our bodies to the notion that bodies are made to assume ‘bad postures’ and we are charged to correct it with chairs, braces and engineered positions of military-eque uprightness also sometimes known as, ‘good posture’. We must instead, ask of our bodies, why we find ourselves in a position we don’t like the look or feel of and recognise that often times, the thing that needs correcting is the set up, not the body. Backs are meant to be reinforced with cylindrically tension, arms are meant to hang by our sides, shoulders are meant to be flush with our chests and the 5kgs of valuable skull, brain, and fluid that make up the vertex of our bodies, prefers to be balanced atop it all - all without much effort.

If an amount of time sitting at a desks (even after adjusting your set up) makes you uncomfortable, congratulations, you are normal. You are being made aware of your fleshly limits for being stationary. Listen for the desire to shift, stretch, stand and move from your position and take the well timed opportunity to do so and re-engage with a new position. After an initial period of conscious attention and adjustment, you will find that the inclusion of movement into your sitting posture isn’t as disruptive as it once seemed. Sitting done actively can be done sustainably, maintained for hours without diminishing our breathing or creating structural problems and pain. When we aren’t taught to sit, we employ achievable but ill fit shapes that expose our tissues to undue stress and deformations that over time create additional issues we have to manage. If you are finding the shape you are choosing to employ is painful or if you are experiencing tension and restrictions from your time office bound, it may be time to get help finding some better sitting strategies going forward. We can help you with that.

Sitting tips : The key to balance begins with the surface you are on. When you are sitting on a flat surface at a height where your feet are able to be planted flat on the ground, the weight of your legs do not sink backwards into the pelvis but instead, is being sent downwards into the ground. Most chairs are angled slightly downwards at the back so you might need to wiggle your way forward to get away from the downslope. Already, you’ve invested some stability to your base of support. Then, rock your torso forward to readjust your sit bones back so when you lever your torso upright, your butt is sitting further back on the chair relative to your belly. From here, slow roll your shoulder joints up, back, around and down a few times to give them a bit of squeeze and a pull in a backwards direction and then let them hang by your side. Bring yourself or the keyboard, work surface, or desk close enough that your elbows don’t have to leave your side.