“Sit Up Straight”: How to Sit Actively
Whose voice did you hear when you read the quoted title? Your mother? Your coach? Your piano teacher? We’ve all been told a million times to sit up straight. When we were young, little did we realize how much we would end up sitting.
Eating
Schoolwork
Going to the movies/theatre/sporting event
Working many jobs
Hobbies
Reading
The John
We sit for much of the day for many different reasons. If we have a desk job or a table-focused hobby, we likely have experimented with varying chairs over the years. We may have tried a standing desk or sitting on a fitness ball (as I am at the moment.) We may similarly have tried different heights for our computer or work surface. Let’s say you have found a reasonably comfortable chair. If you are at a standing desk, you will find the posture cues here helpful.
We sit on our glutes — yes, our bum, with our legs, most often reaching the floor, depending on our height. Our spine is stacked, or not, up from our sacrum to our skull. Our shoulders might be back against the chair or might be curled forward. Our head might align with our spine or drop toward our computer screen, phone, other devices, sewing machine, or hobby. In the 1970s, I never imagined holding a computer in my hand and interacting with it for hours on end. (Dating myself.)
We are likely to do many different things when we sit. The most common is to cross our legs either at the thigh or at the ankle. The occasional crossing isn’t a big deal. However, constant crossing likely pulls your pelvis out of alignment and puts pressure on your lower back. Test it both ways and see where you feel better. I’m not a stickler about anything, believe it or not. If you want to sit cross-legged for a bit, go for it. See how you feel and make adjustments if you get uncomfortable.
For your long-term health, I am most concerned about the tendency for your shoulders to drop forward, your upper back to round, and for your head to stretch your neck toward your work, particularly for long periods.
Your Neck
Our cervical spine is the most flexible part of our back because our neck moves our eyes. We need to watch for bears and loved ones from all directions. It is an excellent design feature. But, despite this flexibility, we tend to reach with our chin or drop our forehead forward, creating a kink in our spine. If you picture your spine as a garden hose, think of this kink as the kind that would stop water flow.
In a study published in the Adesh University Journal of Medical Sciences & Research, the prevalence of forward head posture and its impact on the activity of daily living among students of Adesh University — A cross-sectional study, researchers found: “The forward head posture is not associated only with pain, but it also has effects on breathing, palpitation, sleep disorders, and numbness in limbs.”
Allow your neck to align with the rest of your spine. With this alignment, your head will feel centered on your shoulders. It is helpful to offer a few suggestions for approaching this ideal position. We use multiple examples because different people will respond to alternative cues. If what we explain doesn’t make sense, please message us, and we’ll think of another way to say the same thing.
a. Leave your neck where it most often is. Place one hand on the back of your head. Fill your hand by pressing your skull back into your hand. What did that do? Does your neck now feel in line with your spine? Does your head feel centered on your shoulders?
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b. Tuck your chin and draw it back toward your neck. Notice where you feel your neck aligned with your spine and your head balanced. Experiment with your chin stretched out and your chin tucked in. A good position is somewhere less than tucked fully but still pointing down to the ground.
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c. Bring your mind’s eye to your palate. Draw your palate back till your neck feels in line and your head balanced. Move forward and back before you feel the right spot for you.
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d. This explanation is the most obscure and might not make sense to some. Lift one hand and feel for your hyoid bone. It is a floating bone in your neck, under your chin. You can feel it with your index finger and thumb. The hyoid bone supports the tongue and the larynx. As with the palate, draw your hyoid back under your chin. Test the extremes before you settle into a position that feels optimal. We call this smiling your hyoid. It is a happy thing.
Use whichever approach speaks to you to find a more favorable position for your neck and head. Also, see if unkinking the garden hose reduces tension in your neck and shoulder muscles and improves breathing.
In the 1980s, when I was first working on a computer all day, I didn’t realize where my head was until I learned I had reached the age when I needed reading glasses. I had been reaching forward with my neck to see the screen. Check-in with your vision to see if that has anything to do with where you hold your phone or place your computer. Consider bringing your neck back in alignment if your vision is spot on. When holding your phone, perhaps lift your arm to align with where your eyes land with your neck active. Body awareness is the gift that keeps on giving. If we align our bodies, we can avoid pain and discomfort.
Your Shoulders
Our shoulders are the most mobile joint in the body. I was surprised, too; I would have thought our hips. Three bones work together to create the shoulder girdle. The most stable is our clavicle or collar bone, which crosses the front of our chest in two pieces. Hanging off the clavicle on our backs are our scapula or shoulder blades. These move a lot to accomplish what we want to do in life, sports, and all sorts of activities. They can wrap around our side, move up and down, and draw together. The last bone is the humerus bone on either side. The upper arm bone comes into a shallow ball and joint socket called the glenohumeral joint connected to our scapula at the glenoid fossa. Stop with the Latin!
The upper arm bone or humerus moves a lot to accomplish what we want, connected with our shoulder blades' movement. Think of what a major league pitcher does to his arm to throw a 100-mile-an-hour pitch. Without intention, our shoulders are likely to curl forward toward our activities. The upper arm bone will come out of its socket and drop forward, and the shoulder blades will curve around the side and potentially lift. The clavicle, as mentioned, doesn’t move very much, which is a good thing. We have enough to think about with the rest of our shoulders.
To bring our shoulders into good alignment, we need to manage our shoulder blades and upper arm bones. Several muscles assist with their positioning throughout the whole shoulder system.
As a special mention, we’ll talk about the trapezius. It is a diamond-shaped muscle that wraps over the top of your shoulders and draws down your back in between your shoulder blades. As you feel it, notice it is our fight-or-flight muscle. When you shrug your shoulders up, the top of your trapezius is doing the action. When you draw your shoulder blades down, your lower trapezius is working. In most people, the lower trapezius is underdeveloped. To invite your shoulder blades into a stable position. Use your lower trapezoid to bring them down.
Your shoulder blades also move freely in and out to protract and retract through the action of the serratus anterior and rhomboids. When your shoulder protracts, they come around your ribs under your armpit. When they retract, they drawback flat behind you, landing on the back of your ribs. Serratus anterior is the muscle that pulls them into protraction, and the rhomboid is the muscle that retracts.
Retracted is a good position for much of the day when seated or standing. Test this position by reaching your arms forward. Flex your hands like you were in a plank on the floor. Press the imaginary floor away, and you should feel the serratus anterior pulling your shoulder blades into protraction. Relax, and your rhomboids should draw your shoulder blades back to retraction. If this is a new sensation, try it a few more times. You can also add body weight by putting your hands on a wall, coming on to all 4s, or trying in half or full plank. This new awareness will serve you as you uncover your best posture.
Bringing your upper arm bones into the joint socket will also slightly push your shoulder blades toward each other. We call this external rotation of our shoulder or arm bones instead of the internal rotation common when typing on a computer or other devices. Rolling your shoulders back may be an excellent way to find that lower shoulder blade position.
We aren’t advocating snapping to a military stance. It is more relaxed than that and best not to pop our ribs forward. Start with your shoulders in their most common position, and draw the upper arm bone back and down into the socket. Release and try again. Notice what you feel. Can you feel the sense of external rotation? Furthermore, you choose stability over mobility while still holding on to the notion that you can move out of place as required to complete an activity. Play around and see what you discover.
Opening your chest and smiling your clavicle goes along with this optimal position. The muscles in our chest connect to the muscles in our shoulders. If our chest collapses, our shoulders will follow. If our chest opens, our shoulders will open or externally rotate. Lifting or opening the chest is the final piece of shoulder stability.
Your Thoracic Spine
Your ribs encircle your thoracic spine. Many people have gotten into the habit of a curved or kyphotic thoracic spine. As described above, drawing your shoulders together and opening your chest will counter that problem. You also want to soften your front ribs. As a child, I had the habit of standing at attention with my front ribs stuck out, like a classic Military pose. Draw your front ribs in and broaden your back ribs to facilitate sitting tall. The combined correction of shoulder placement and rib engagement will likely remove the curvature of your thoracic spine. We can offer exercises to unpack this hard-working area if you still have trouble.
A recent study, the influence of smartphone use on spinal posture — A laboratory study, published in Gait & Posture, Volume 85, March 2021, concluded: “All smartphone tasks lead to a significant increase in thoracic kyphosis and trunk inclination during standing and while walking.”
Your Core
Our core, essentially, holds us up whether we are standing or sitting. You may be less aware of these 360-degree muscles when you are seated. Sit and try the following experiment. Sit down on a straight-backed chair. After you get the idea, you can try the same thing on a softer chair or couch. Rock your pelvis forward and back. Picture that you have a tail at the end of your tailbone. Rock back and push the tail in the air; you will likely feel your back arch and belly drop. Rock forward and pull the tail under you; you will likely feel your belly draw up. Rock back and forth until you find a neutral or middle position where your tail is going straight down. When you find that, odds are, you have activated all sides of your core. Another way to think about it is to lift your hip bones toward your chest. Play with different positions. Try different chairs.
See what you can do to maximize the health of your sitting if your work or habits keep you there for extended hours. After years of sitting to write with my shoulders dropped and my head forward, I improved my posture through yoga and fitness training. Now, I am never not thinking about my core when I sit. Okay, I may not think about it while I concentrate on my writing, but engaging my core is a constant sitting, walking, and standing—the same with my shoulders. I want to feel relaxed with my arm bones in their socket and shoulder blades down on my back. I invite my body to sit actively by engaging my core and shoulders. I still want to get up every 30 minutes, stretch, walk around, or do a quick exercise. Sitting actively will make this necessary position safer and more sustainable.