Best Sitting Posture Is Not Straight Up

An anonymous reader writes, "Researchers at Woodend Hospital in Aberdeen, Scotland used a new form of magnetic resonance imaging to collect images from 22 healthy volunteers, who assumed three different sitting positions: slouching posture in which the body is hunched forward, an upright 90-degree sitting position, and a relaxed position where the subject reclined backward 135 degrees. They concluded that the reclined position is the best, and the forward slouch the worst." From the article: "'We were not created to sit down for long hours, but somehow modern life requires the vast majority of the global population to work in a seated position,' Dr. Bashir said. 'This made our search for the optimal sitting position all the more important.'"

Comments

They make to many assumptions

[sinistre]

1. The intervertebral disc is NOT the only thing that can cause back pain. Slouching may unload the intervertebral disc but it will put strain on other structures.

2. Intervertebral discs NEED load too - it's actually healthy for the disc. So unloading it all day will make it weaker and could actually lead to a disc prolapse.

3. One study recently showed that it was actually beneficial for your discs if you were overweight! However if you do have a degenerated disc - it becomes more a part of the problem. Still the rest of your discs will need to be loaded.

4. Another study that tried to identify risk factors for long term disability in workers found that x-rays and MRI's gave little value - one factor that actually did prove to be a risk was if the worker was miserable at work.

Which brings me to my point; Keep moving. No one posture is good or bad for your back - they all become bad if you sustain them for too long. The worst thing a back patient can do is to stop using their backs. I always encourage my patients (I'm a physical therapist with a masters in manual therapy) to keep moving!