Are you sitting comfortably?

As our working day becomes increasingly sedentary it’s imperative that our work stations are set up to be ergonomically-sound and promote optimum posture. 

Combining Pilates, physiotherapy and ergonomic advice, our Free Your Spine-Ergolates workshops aim to help improve your posture at work and throughout daily life. I thought it would be useful to share my top tips for perfecting your posture and keeping neck and back pain at bay: 

 10 Basic Ergonomic check Points:

1.  Have your screen at eye level and arms length away.

2.    Check you have no screen glare from light sources and windows.

3.    Relax your shoulders.

4.    Elbows by the side of your torso.

5.    Arms form an L shape, with wrists resting on the desk.

6.    Use a separate mouse and keyboard.

7.    Lower back (lumbar spine) is supported by your chair.

8.    Knees level with your hips at a 90 degree angle.

9.    Feet flat on the floor, or placed on a foot rest.

10. The space beneath your desk should be spacious and uncluttered.

Offices, chairs and desks are not one size fits all, so it’s unrealistic to expect every generic office chair and desk height to suit every body. Ergolates helps us to adapt ourselves to our environment without sacrificing our body. 

Once we have organized our work stations, it's time to think about how we can power up our posture whilst working. 

5 Postural tips for “in active working”:

1.    Practice neutral posture. Essentially this is where your head stacks over your shoulders and your shoulders stack over your hips.

2.    Train your shoulders to sit in a good position where they ideally draw down from your ears and connect into your back. 

3.    Engage your core as much as you can whilst sitting.

4.    Avoid crossing your legs to enable blood circulation to run evenly around the lower half of the body and limit cramping in feet.

5.    Check your breathing! When you slouch your breathing is shallow because your lungs are compressed. If you are not breathing deeply, it is much harder to concentrate with less oxygen circulating and reaching your brain.

To find out more about our workshop and office posture clinics, head over to here