5 Ways Poor Sitting Posture May Be Dragging Down Your Body
Posture is the alignment of body parts relative to one another, and it comes into play in all positions, from standing and sitting to lying down. Sitting posture is particularly challenging, given that many people tend to slouch when they sit.
Poor sitting posture habits can lead to a variety of problems with your musculoskeletal system, as well as other health issues.
In fact, recent research suggests that poor posture may even affect your mood. It all starts with the bones, muscles, joints and related tissues that provide your body with its form, stability and movement. Here are five ways that poor sitting posture can affect your musculoskeletal system.
1. Pain from sitting in one position too long
Maintaining your body in a slouchy sitting posture for too long can create excessive mechanical strain on one or more parts. This can in turn cause pain in your muscles, joints, bones and ligaments.
2. Changes in your joints
Poor sitting posture can also cause neck, mid-back, and lower back joints and intervertebral discs to stiffen and change shape. This can cause you to develop pain and difficulty when attempting to stand up straight or bend backward.
3. Joint alignment issues
Over time, these joint changes can cause alignment issues. The body is in some ways similar to a car or any other mechanical device: the “structure dictates the function.” For example, if your car’s front wheels are perfectly aligned and balanced, it will be easier to drive, and the tires will wear normally as expected. However, if you hit a pothole every day on your way to work, the alignment will soon deteriorate, and one or more tires will wear unevenly and faster than they should.
4. Tight muscles
In addition, tightness from poor sitting posture often occurs in the hip flexor muscles in the front of the hips, hamstring muscles in the back of the thighs, and the muscles in your lower neck and back. This muscle tightness can affect the normal movement of the joints, which can cause abnormal wear and tear.
5. Loss of flexibility
Maintaining poor postural alignment for long periods can also lead to certain body parts developing “adaptive soft tissue shortening.” If you have ever broken your arm and been casted with your elbow bent for several weeks, you know what happens: your elbow stiffens and stays in the bent position after the cast is removed. It can take several weeks or months and lots of stretching and movement to restore the adaptively shortened tissues back to pre-injury flexibility. The same is true when you have a consistently poor sitting posture.
If you’re experiencing neck, lower back or other types of muscle and joint pain, poor sitting posture may be playing a part. In a future post, we’ll explore ways to help improve your sitting posture to reduce muscle and joint strain.