It’s common place now.
Dreaded ‘Work From Home Posture’
I’ve always called this ‘Desk Posture’, having worked with busy professionals for years.
But it’s different now. It’s much more widespread since everyone’s been working home for the last year. And it doesn’t look like this is changing any time soon.
Although the world seems to becoming a safer, more accessible place, lots of businesses will remain working from home.
Pretty quickly after the lockdown began, many businesses realized they could get the job done at home, without high rent costs, commuting time and other factors that brought down productivity.
The result? Shitty posture for everyone!
And it’s actually gotten worse than when people were at work all day…
A lot of my clients sit on their bed all day when they are working.
You know a sure fire way to bring your posture to shit with the quickness? Sit on your bed all day.
And even worse… the stimulus is always there. Always engraining the negative effects at all times.
Seems like an endless cycle with no hope in site.
Luckily there is hope, you just need to be proactive about it.
I’ve worked with hundreds of people in a rehab setting in the past where spine/shoulder pain was present.
Countless times what we did, and what worked, was implement protocols to counteract their daily life.
Successfully counteract daily life and we drastically reduce pain and discomfort while improving posture, aesthetics and overall health of the body and mind.
Now what does this protocol look like, you ask?
It’s simple, really!
We need to:
- Get the body moving
- Get the blood flowing
- Recognize weaknesses and imbalances
- Address said weaknesses and imbalances
- Be consistent and frequent with this approach
- Look and feel better
Easy as pie, huh?
Now, what are the specifics?
If we’re being sedentary like the majority of our population, we need blood flow. Without blood flow our body will remain stiff, achy and in pain with poor aesthetics.
So we need to move. Go on a walk, jog, bike ride, do some jumping jacks, run in place, whatever you gotta do to increase body temperature and get the juices flowing.
Typically with posture issues our weakness is the posterior chain (entire back of the body, from heel to head). We are typically imbalanced front to back with short and tight muscles like the chest, abs and hip flexors in the front and lengthened and weak posterior chain.
Once we recognize what’s up, we can address them.
In order to address our weaknesses we need to loosen and strengthen them.
For loosening, I suggest getting a foam roller, lacrosse ball, massage gun or any type of soft tissue device. Roll in the armpit and make it hurt (a little). You want to loosen tight tissue to allow it to move properly and be able to grow stronger.
After loosening you want to strengthen.
Most people will just hop into the gym and bust out some dumbbell or cable rows.
Now, this is definitely part of the process but you are skipping some essential steps.
We need to prioritize the intrinsic musculature of the body, the deeper, more superficial muscles that help support the structure of the body.
If you do straight for the big guns, no stability and achieved and you’ll still have a piss poor foundation.
Take a step back from ‘strength gains’ and dial in with some corrective exercises.
What are these, you say?
Corrective exercises will ‘correct’ posture and movement quality while helping to improve mind-muscle connection, improve blood flow, minimize imbalances and generally make you feel better.
I’d also recommend
As a ‘canned’ posture corrective exercise routine, you can follow this mini workout.
- Foam roll armpit, mid back, chest 30-60 seconds each
- Cat/cow 20
- Serratus push 20
- Adductor rock 20 each
- T-Spine rotation 20 each
- Bird dog 10 each with 5 second hold at top
- Prone cobra 10
- Dynamic blackburn 10
This workout can be done on a daily basis, even twice a day if you can fit it in. Do it in the morning to start your day and/or before a workout.
Do this on a daily basis for a month or two and notice how much better you feel and look. After that, you can dial things in and reduce frequency because in essence you have ‘corrected’ the issue with these movements.
Since the stimuli of sitting at work will never go away (for now) you’ll want to keep this as a maintenance workout to keep things fresh.
No more piss poor posture, go make Granny proud.