I know it can be difficult to maintain a really good posture when you’re forced to work from home and sit a desk daily.
I wanted to outline my postural system and what I do to help maintain good posture especially as I’m working from home in this shelter in place.
A quick back story before we get into the overall system is that I struggled with having poor posture my entire life. I had rounded shoulders, significant pain in my hips and back area. This system has been instrumental in helping me alleviate the pain and build a strong foundation for my posture. We must take measures to ensure that we maintain our posture for a good healthy life.
A strong posture is proven to help boost your body’s overall health and mental confidence. Below is seven things that I do and have to maintain a great posture.
Get a standing desk now. I can’t stress the importance of using a standing desk. I specifically use a desk from a company called Fully and its Jarvis brand. It’s extremely durable, adjustable, and many options for sizes to fit any room. This standing desk has been one of the biggest game-changers for especially with the importance of staying at home. I also strongly recommend getting an anti-fatigue mate to place at the base of your desk. You can find an anti-fatigue mat for quite cheap on Amazon and excellent to help remove stress on your feet for carrying your body in the standing position.
Pull-up bar – recommend getting a multi-grip bar like this
A pull-up bar is an extremely convenient way of getting an amazing workout at the comfort of your home a pull-up bar can fit pretty nicely with any door and hallway. I use it in between meetings or whenever I feel like taking a break. If pull-ups are a little difficult, consider getting an assistance band to help you.
Dead hangs (great article on the benefits of dead hangs)
Besides doing pull-ups and chin-ups, another great way of improving your posture is simply hanging on the pull-up bar. There’s a lot of benefits of hanging as it does wonders for grip and shoulder strength. It’s also fantastic in decompressing your spine. Sometimes when you’re sitting at your desk for too long, your spine will compress and so you’ll notice that you feel a little tight when you finally get up. Simply hanging on a pull-up bar is a great way to stretch, decompress, and strengthen your body.
I know this looks goofy, but I use these glasses a lot. I love to read in bed, but this sometimes strains my neck. Lazy glasses allow you to keep your neck and your spine in a neutral position but allow you to see what’s right below your eye level. This is a fantastic way to stay consistent on your back and neck but also able to look at your phone or read a book in a very comfortable position.
Another great addition to any workstation is a motion stool. Now, this is very different than a chair, a motion stool forces you to use your body to stabilize yourself and uses your muscles to your advantage. When you’re sitting on a chair it tends to deactivate certain muscles in your body. A motion stool ensures that your back is properly neutral and engaged while sitting down.
Alexander Technique (AT) – I recommend Jeremy Korer at PostureMove for those of you in the Bay Area.
Unlike a chiropractor or a physical therapist, AT is a noninvasive postural corrective massage that focuses on loosening and relaxing certain muscles but engaging the appropriate muscles to maintain a really good strong body. Some of the main premises and perspectives with AT community is that your body is like clay and can be molded to an optimal posture. This technique is a holistic preventative care technique that focuses on optimizing and using your body to the fullest. A few lessons from AT is to focus on keeping your head held high and to lead your movements, especially walking or running, with your head. The other lesson focuses on releasing your muscles and mind, There are many times that we tend to get tense to the stressors in our life and so AT emphasizes on releasing and letting these stressors be and flow.
Floor Work (example picture in link)
This last exercise that I highly recommend is called for floor work. Simply lay flat on your back and bend your knees up. Keep your shoulders and your arms to your side and have a small book to slightly prop your head up. There’s a misconception that our neck and spine are completely aligned, but in fact, our neck is slightly protruded forward. A tiny book or pillow is a great way of maintaining neutrality with your spine in your neck. Floor work allows you to release the muscles that are constantly contracted and detracted throughout the day. When doing floor work, the key thing to think about is melting your back onto the floor. Let your back sink into the floor. Close your eyes and take a deep breath, and let your body relax. Doing this for about 15 to 30 minutes a day will do wonders in reducing pain and strengthening your overall posture.
Bonus: Squatty Potty
We poop the wrong way in the western world. If you’ve ever gone to parts of Asia, you will see that they use toilets where you have to squat on the ground and poop. I won’t get into a lot of details here, but squatting on the ground helps naturally align your body to release and poop. Of course, we don’t like this in the western world and prefer to sit on our toilets like we normally do. Squatty Potty is the perfect addition to your bathroom as it forces you to replicate squatting and using your body appropriately to poop. I highly recommend investing in a squatty potty. If you want a deeper dive into how this works, check out the “Pooping 101” section here.