Step 3: Use a Lumbar Support

The Desk Warriors Guide to Building a Healthy Back! 3/10

Now that we've learned that there is no one "ideal" sitting posture and that we Desk Warriors must have a repertoire of tolerable postures. Our repertoire should include mostly postures that allow for the spine maintain its natural curves, specifically the lumbar curve.

Some chairs set you up for failure right from the start.

The above chair has no lumbar support and will have your arse lower than your knee, creating flexed, weakened, painful spines. When working with these chairs it is essential to arm yourselves with a weapon. This weapon will spare your spinal capacity for more important tasks like playing with your children, doing yard work, or walking the dog.

The Weapon I speak of is a lumbar support and it comes in many shapes and sizes. Before I elaborate on those, lets examine why a lumbar support is essential to those interested in their spinal health. Lumbar supports should be a part of any Desk Warriors arsenal because they help place you in a more natural seated position. Rather that eliciting a great muscular effort from your hip flexors, abdominals, obliques, and lumbar spinal muscles to maintain your lumbar curve, (placing compressive load on the spine in a flexed position) we can rely more on our passive tissues in a less compressed manner. This means you'll be able to sit longer without detriment. You can type the rest of that paper, send out those last few e-mails, make those last calls etc... You'll be a more productive worker with less damage to your spine.

Granted we want to sit less for a multitude of health reasons, we still sometimes need to sit for prolonged periods and sitting with a lumbar support will help that cause.

A good lumbar support is one that will allow you to maintain a similar lumbar curve to when you are standing with good posture. This should be the position in which you are standing tall and that your core muscles are most relaxed. Go ahead stand up and find this position. You should be able to go in a 360' wrap around your spine, feeling all the muscles and not getting too much tense feedback, especially in the muscles of the lumbar spine. If you can't stand without tensed core muscles, we've got a problem. This lack of muscle tone indicates a lack of compressive force and thus, a posture that can be tolerated for longer durations.

Now, lets visit the lumbar supports and their various shapes and sizes. As stated above, the right lumbar support for you is one that will help you achieve the amount of lordosis that you naturally possess when standing. Some Desk Warriors may require more support than others. For others, too much support may be just as uncomfortable or more uncomfortable as no support at all. Though there is some individuality in the needs for lumbar support, the idea of supporting the lumbar spine when sitting is still valid and should be pursued.

Lumbar supports come in various shapes and sizes as evidenced on amazon.com. I recommend the contoured variety, like the Carex Lumbar Support Cushion. They embrace your entire low back and apply a bit of support from the sides. I have personally tried the McKenzie lumbar support and McKenzie air support and found them to be flimsy and less supportive. I personally use a Welby foam lumbar support that is very similar to the Carex variety. They can be purchased from time to time at Aldi (the grocery store). I haven't found them online. Look for a support that wraps around your chair so that it will stay in place. Versatility is also something to consider. Remember, changing positions often is desirable. Your lumbar support can be a tool to facilitate this.

You don't have to go out and spend cash to use lumbar supports. You can simply roll up a towel, use a small pillow, the dog, a book. I don't care what you use, but you should use something. I do however recommend buying a lumbar support; one that you enjoy and will use often. I don't anticipate people using rolled up towels often. The less work you have to do the better, and the more often you use it while sitting the better. Buy one for work, one for home and one for the car. Heck, if you are really orthopedically mangled, you may even want to sleep with one. McKenzie sells 180' spinal support wraps that will help preserve your lumbar spine for our side and back sleepers. Consider this an option if lower back pain keeps you awake at night, or if resting does not alleviate your back pain resulting from a days work.

So get out there and get yourself a nice lumbar support and use it! Spare your spine for more battles at the desk!

Step 1: Sit Less!

The Desk Warriors Guide to Building a Healthy Back! 1/10

The International Journal of Obesity found in 2001 that Australian men working full-time on average spent 9.8 hours sitting in a chair daily. Since we Americans work more than most any other country, I'd estimate we sit perhaps 10 hours per day on average. This may seem like a lot at first but think about ones typical day. We wake up and may sit down for breakfast, if not we sit in the car as we drive to work. Most of us spend the majority of time seated at work. We sit down for lunch and dinner. The drive home is spent sitting in traffic and finally we crash on the couch to watch some night time television or to check our Facebooks. So now 10 hours per day doesn't seem so outrageous. 10 hours per day is 3,650 hours per year, or 42% of our day!

This “trend” of sitting for such long hours on a daily basis is surely not in line with our evolution. Accountants and I.T. Professionals are rather recent vocations. Sitting through rush-hour traffic and sitcoms are also new endeavors. We are evolving from hunter-gatherers who spent very little time sitting and when they did, they sat like this to amorphis blobs that vegetate in front of computer screens. (see below)

So why is all this sitting a problem for our backs? Why does it contribute to pain? To understand this we must understand a little anatomy.

When we stand with ideal posture, the curve in the small of our backs (lumbar curve) enables us to stand with a minimum of core muscle activity. Small amounts of core muscle activity while at rest (lying, sitting, standing, walking) is a good thing, because all core muscle activity compresses the spine. Too much compression of the spine will require a large percentage of your backs daily tolerance to loading.(which we'll talk about later)

You see, a muscle can only contract, or shorten. The muscles that support the spine go from your ribs to your hips or from the vertebrae of the spine itself to your hips and femur. Thus when these muscles contract, they shorten effectively compressing the spine. This is all fine and dandy when we are doing athletic moves and need a stable spine, but when we are simply sitting and resting, we want minimal spinal compression thus we want our normal lumbar curve.

When we sit, our lumber curve is attenuated, even in the best of chairs. Thus, we lose our lumbar curve and contribute to spinal column compression via excess muscular activation. Excessive core activation overtime via sitting or poor posture will... as my man Dr. Stuart McGill, the leading spine researcher in the English speaking world states A.) Decrease our work capacity B.) Degenerate the spine more rapidly C.) Exacerbate pain and disc problems. D.) Increase in intradiscal pressure when compared to standing postures.E.) Increase in posterior annulus strain. (Thats your disc trying to herniate or bulge backward)F.) Creep in posterior passive tissues which decreases anterior/posterior stiffness and increases sheering movement. (less stabile/more painful)G.) Posterior migration of the mechanical fulcrum which reduces the mechanical advantage of the extensor musculature (resulting in compressive loading).

In Layman's terms, prolonged sitting forces the spine to bend forward. See the spine above, picture it bent forward. The front of the vertebrates compressed together, pushing the center (nucleus) of the disks backwards. This is how we get bulging and herniated discs without traumatic injury. Also, the ligaments that support the vertebrae on the back side are elongated. They adapt to this elongated position. This is referred to as ligamentous creep. The ligaments are stretched out and your spine is now less stable. We want a stable lumbar spine and good movement in the thoracic or mid-spine and the cervical or neck regions.

When we sit, our quads (muscles in front of our legs) and our hip flexors (deep muscles connecting spine-hip-femur) are in a shortened state. Since we are very adaptive organisms, our bodies adapt to this shortened position as the new norm. The end result is short, tight muscles. These short tight muscles then pull our hips into an anterior-tilt (forward). (IMAGE) This is a problem because our lower backs compensate.

Our lower backs also will compensate for the anterior, or forward head position as seen below. This problematic posture loads the neck muscles much more, resulting in increased compression and thus neck pain, cervical disk herniations, arthritis, pinched nerves, shoulder pain and other problems related to nerve impingement that will manifest elsewhere in the body. Now this forward head position throws off our spinal equilibrium. The neck is flexed forward, the mid-spine is stable due to the articulations with the ribs. The mid-spine is less mobile and therefore our lower backs will again pick up the slack and take on the extra flexion. This is PRECISELY WHY YOU SHOULD NOT LOOK UPWARDS WHEN SQUATTING!

So when we have tight, short muscles in one area that inhibit proper movement patterns, other joints must pick up the movement slack. In this case, the joints directly above and below our tight hips pick up the slack. These joints of course would be the five vertebrae of the lumbar spine and the knees. Let's think real quick of the top 2 complaints that would lead one to see an orthopedic specialist. YEP, you guessed it achy LOWER BACKS and KNEES! The sitting posture tightens the anterior muscles and subsequently elongates and weakens the posterior muscles, leading to poor motor control and decreased tolerance to injury.

Hopefully we understand better why sitting is awful for us. It makes us shorter, weaker, less attractive and more prone to injury and pain. But how can we expect to sit less? Our livelihoods now depend on our ability to sit for extended periods of time. This 10 part series on spine health will cover the best ways to sit all the way to strengthening and rehabilitating your jacked-up spine.

O yes, and my references...