‘Sit up straight’, ‘Don’t Slouch’, ‘it’s your core!’
- Vary your position
- Mobilise and stretch
- Strengthen when you can
Do these terms sound familiar? Do you find you’re slumping forward at work and then feeling guilty when your posture isn’t perfect?
You’ll be pleased to know that there is a certain amount of fallacy around sitting up straight all the time! It is perfectly acceptable to sit in many different positions. The key is… vary them up from time to time during the day. It is a completely unreasonable expectation to keep yourself sitting in one, straight up posture perfect position for a full working day.
What are the alternatives?
So if this all a bit of a fallacy, what should you be doing?
Change position regularly
When you start to feel achy, move! Change your position. Feel free to slump back in your chair. Extend your legs out in front of you. It’ll be ok.
Mobilise and stretch during the day
Contrary to popular belief, stretching doesn’t physically create a longer muscle. What it does do, it brings oxygen to the area, opens the joints, it allows for slip and glide between the muscles, and importantly, it helps to bring the all-important hyaluronic acid to area. This is hydration! There are many stretches you can do at your desk which can be hugely beneficial. They are easy, and can be done as many times as you can throughout the day to help.
Move, move, move
Set up your focus time but try to include regular movement breaks throughout your day.
Strengthen at home/when you can
We are all at different stages of our lives. Some of us get to the gym regularly, others do the odd treadmill walk, and some of us can’t seem to find the time to slot in 45min-1hr of workout. So, when I say strengthen, don’t panic if you’re not in gym mode. It doesn’t take a whole bunch of time to some simple things that strengthen the muscles you need for postural sturdiness. That way, your body won’t reach hurting point quite so quickly.