What is good seated posture?
Good seated posture depends on a chair design, which can preserve the natural, healthy curves of the spine.
These curves are present when we are standing but are lost when we sit on conventional chairs.
As we sit down our thighs form an angle of 90 degrees to our body. This means that the pelvis rolls back and the whole spine deforms into the ‘C’ shape we see when people are seated on conventional seating.
The pelvis is the key to the position of the spinal curves. When the pelvis changes position so does the whole spine along with everything attached to it; the neck and head, the ribs, the shoulders, the arms and hands. We therefore need to have the pelvis stable, in its upright neutral position, in order to maintain the natural healthy spinal curves.
We need to radically change our thinking about how we sit, especially for work.
Current seating just does not provide good posture. In fact it has been said by many experts, that this seating is probably the most unhealthy of all prolonged postures the human body assumes, not only causing long term spinal damage but impairment to respiratory and digestive functions.
For good-seated posture, maintenance of the natural curves of the spine is essential. As stated, the pelvis is the key to the position of spinal curves. We can feel that when the pelvis moves, so does the whole spine, neck, head, shoulders and arms. Most of us have no idea that it is by moving the pelvis we ‘sit up’ believing that we must ‘straighten’ our backs, shoulders, neck and head. In reality all we do in that case is stretch, which is useful, but only briefly corrects poor posture.
So if you can keep your pelvis stable in its upright position you will keep your whole spine with its attachments of head, shoulders, arms and hands in its natural, neutral position with healthy lumbar lordosis, but will also keep your abdomen and chest open for healthy function.
In leaning forward over a keyboard or other work, the spine will collapse even more with the forward bend happening at the waist. To preserve good spinal position the bend needs to take place at the hips so that the whole spine leans forward. This also avoids compressing the chest and abdomen while working.
