Posture Affects Standing, and Not Just the Physical Kind | Hacker News Reader

Posture Affects Standing, and Not Just the Physical Kind

mobile.nytimes.com

89 pointspetethomas31 comments

Guy complains about being prone to back pain (despite his adamant stance about the correct posture) then says something like this:

> We live in a gravitational field, and when our bodies are out of line with the vertical, certain muscles will have to work harder than others to keep us upright. This can result in undue fatigue and discomfort that can outlast the strain that caused them.

I have given myself back pain once. Lasted few months and hurt like hell when getting my head up from the bed (and other similarly straining activities). Went away while after I eliminated the cause. Which was most comfortable chair I've ever had.

Chair was perfect and supported me perfectly. I was sitting for hours in it. But my pose was static. Why move out of optimum? This caused small stabilizing muscles near my spine to weaken (while the large ones stayed fairly strong). Then it was enough to lift something bit awkwardly to cause significant damage to them that took few days to heal (or even weeks before I discovered which exercise to apply to work the small deep muscle that hurt).

I'm slouching since forever. But I also wriggle in my chairs and get up often. I found good chairs to be those that allow for that.

I picked one link in the article at random:

> In a study of 110 students at San Francisco State University, half of whom were told to walk in a slumped position and the other half to skip down a hall, the skippers had a lot more energy throughout the day.

and followed the link to the cited abstract:

> The treatment of depression has predominantly focused on medication or cognitive behavioral therapy and has given little attention to the effect of body movement and postures. This study investigated how body posture during movement affects subjective energy level. One hundred and ten university students (average age 23.7) rated their energy level and then walked in either a slouched position or in a pattern of opposite arm and leg skipping. After about two to three minutes, the students rated their subjective energy level, then walked in the opposite movement pattern and rated themselves again. After slouched walking, the participants experienced a decrease in their subjective energy (p < .01); after opposite arm leg skipping they experienced a significant increase in their subjective energy (p < .01). There was a significantly greater decrease (p < .05) in energy at the end of the slouched walk for the 20% of the participants who had the highest self-rated depression scores, as compared to the lowest 20%. By changing posture, subjective energy level can be decreased or increased. Thus the mind-body relationship is a two way street: mind to body and body to mind. The authors discuss clinical and teaching implications of body posture.

You followed one random link, and what? The statement seems to reflect the abstract.

Following a small random selection of links is a decent way of figuring out whether an article quotes its sources fairly — it's common that authors are either quite diligent about everything, or sloppy about everything, not inbetween.

The abstract doesn't quite say the thing she says it says. Not that this shows the overall point of the article is not true, just that a random sampling (n=1, p≤1) of the sources suggests the article may be sloppily written and it and its use of evidence should be questioned, not taken at face value.

FWIW, I think the article is fluff.

I think all articles like this are fluff, but I do believe in the placebo effect. If I believe having good posture makes me happy then it will.

Placebo effect often shuts down when you know about it being placebo.

Somehow "after about two to three minutes, the students rated their subjective energy level" turned into "a lot more energy throughout the day". Also, all the study participants did both styles of walk, contrary to the blog post’s implication. Overall, the summary misleading and not particularly relevant to the author’s main point, which is about the long-term effects of chronically bad posture.

I dunno, depends on what you want to accomplish... Few years ago I thought I was staring downward too much while walking (Don’t drive, so I walk a lot), putting my head up more I was more aware of further surroundings and noticed more things, but found I didn't have as much time mental problem-solving while commuting as I had previously.

Maybe if I wasn’t so happy an introvert I'd do it more, but I prefer to be in my mind than noticing the mostly oblivious community.

The ramifications physically of bad posture affect you regardless of any of this. If you really want to cur out the outside world more while walking, wear a brimmed hat low on your face but keep your head up.

That's quite an aggressive stance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drill_instructor#/media/File:D...

Heh, yeah. But you don't have to pop your veins out of your neck. And if you have a skip in your step and/or wear some quirky colorful clothing, people won't see you as aggressive just for having good posture and a low hat.

On a related note, I once got a reading injury - I had a 45 min walk to work, and so tried reading a book on the walk. After a week of this, I had hurt my neck - your neck isn't really made for bobbing your head in a reading posture while walking :)

Also relatedly, I've experimented holding my phone higher than normal while reading from it, at almost eye-level. But I can't get myself into the consistent habit.

Good posture isn;t all about sitting/standing strait. You can sit perfectly well 100% of the time and still have problems. You have to move, to actually exercise. You aren't going to develop proper back muscles through sitting, regardless of how perfectly you do it.

> I bought my current vehicle, a Toyota Sienna minivan, largely because I was immediately comfortable when I got behind the wheel for a test drive. My entire back was supported, so not a twinge was felt there, unlike what happens in many other cars. I could also easily see over the steering wheel without tilting my head back, which is not the case in most other vehicles. And I could reach the floor pedals without unduly extending my leg and straining my lower back.

Advice for the author and anyone else with a similar predicament: you can replace the seat, steering wheel and pedals of any vehicle with one or two hand tools. Choice of aftermarket parts will be greater for more popular models. There are some generic parts as well, with little adapters to fit different models. Steering wheel height is adjustable in most cars, as is seat position... I would not recommend buying a car just because the default configuration feels comfy.

If you want to learn about good posture and proper walking, learn Argentine Tango. This is serious advice.

Besides, it has a ton of other side effects that are specifically beneficial to people working in IT jobs.

This applies to most dancing, though I concede that Argentine Tango is more demanding than most partner dances.

Tango is definitely an awesome dance (though, as a Uruguayan, I must object about it being called "Argentine").

It is very demanding, and I never advanced past the basics, but yes, it will improve your coordination and posture.

Among the ton of other side effects, the main one is you get to meet some cool people :)

To be honest, I don't like the music that much :P, and many tango enthusiasts become fanatics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tango

I followed the last link in the article (on weak back extensors) and found a helpful exercise video to recommend to my backpack-slogging teenage son. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKD2kKa_ME0

It's all too easy to ignore the admonition to maintain good posture when you are young. I can speak from experience that our back doesn't forgive that mistake and it's very hard to make it forget.

I wish that article had more practical advice in addition to re-iterating the horrors of bad posture though.

>practical advice

do compound barbell exercises. especially if you sit all day at work.

This is something that I wish the article would've focused on more, exercise. Simple things like going for a jog are underrated.

This is anecdotal, but a lot of people slump and have terrible posture when they jog.

Can confirm, used to be able to run a 18 min 5k and had the worst posture.

Jog? Maybe in 1986, these days it's all about the sprints.

Careful about that though. If you have typical computer-user posture, you'll often have a weak back and tight chest muscles. If you jump into bench pressing (as everyone does) without correcting the imbalance, you can make it worse. Essentially I'm saying a big yes to weight-training, but beyond learning the basics of how to lift, your initial focus should be correcting any existing postural issues, ideally after talking to a physio about it.

Absolutely! One must learn proper technique of squats (low bar back squats specifically), deadlift, press and bench press. It is enough for start. Find a good training plan (I like Mark Rippetoe's but there are other great ones) and start training 3 times a week. After 6-8 months you'll look at your past, weak self with utmost disguise and your future strong self with admiration :)

And start with an empty bar and increase slowly. A lot of people let their ego get in the way and load up the bar their first times and try to force lifts way too heavy. Not only is that bad because of the load, but starting light gives you time to actually learn the lifts while the weight on the bar is light enough to maintain proper form.

For my part it was the squat that was a major issue - too tight hips is another typical "computer-user" problem. Some basic stretches for the hips and taking it slower fixed that very quickly, but I wasted lots of time before I realised what the problem was.

I admit I started sitting up straight while reading that.

funny how that automatically happens when someone mentions posture

Generally, reading about something causes you to think about it.

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