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True
or False (Answers
Below):
1. Good posture practice is all
about keeping your spine
straight.
2. In a 24-hour period, most people
sit more than they stand or lie
down.
3. Slouching is more comfortable
than sitting
upright.
4. Poor posture practice can lead
to degenerative disc and joint
disease, cardiovascular disease,
diabetes, and
obesity.
5. Proper working posture while
sitting at your desk would properly
position your hands just forward of
your
knees.
6. The connective soft tissues that
hold your spine together have a
“memory.”
7. Proper sitting requires that you
constantly monitor the correct
positions of your head, shoulders,
arms, and
back.
8. You should avoid sitting for
longer than thirty minutes at a
time.
9. Deskwork is a fairly neutral
activity.
10. Tight hamstring muscles in the
back of the thighs can contribute
to poor sitting
posture.
1. Good posture practice is all
about keeping your spine
straight.
False. Good
posture practice is about
maintaining the normal shape of
your spine, which (from a front or
back perspective) is straight, but
from a side perspective your spine
has three natural
contours. The
normal forward arch of the neck or
lower back can actually straighten
out from chronic poor posture
practice─and that’s not
a good thing.
Remember that good posture practice
also means not sitting for too long
at any on time and moving your body
through its complete range of
motion to preserve
flexibility.
2. In a 24-hour period, most people
sit more than they stand or lie
down.
True.
Most adults sleep 7-8 hours per
day, which leaves 16-17 waking hour
in a 24-hour
period. Of those
waking hours, typically 6-7 are
occupied by a combination of
standing, walking, chores, light
recreation, and
exercise. That
leaves 10-11 hours mostly spent in
a seated position, including work
time, commuting, eating, relaxing,
and during various forms of
electronic entertainment such as
computer gaming, web surfing, and
watching TV.
3. Slouching is more comfortable
than sitting
upright.
False.
Slouching disengages the mid to
lower back muscles so a person may
feel a false sense of relaxation
for a time, but slouching also
displaces the head forward on the
body, which significantly increases
the strain on the upper back and
neck muscles.
The result is that muscle effort is
merely being shifted from one part
to another.
Slouching while performing desk or
computer work will also require
greater arm and shoulder muscle
effort. On the
other hand, sitting upright with
the upper body weight fully relaxed
into the seatback aligns the spine
in its neutral position and is easy
on the neck, shoulder, arm, and
back
muscles.
4. Poor posture practice can lead
to degenerative disc and joint
disease, cardiovascular disease,
diabetes, and
obesity.
True.
Poor posture practice is epidemic
in our society and a much greater
public health concern than most
people realize.
While good posture practice
maintains the normal shape of the
spine and ensures that the stresses
and strains of gravitational
compression and muscle contraction
are most evenly applied, poor
posture practice bends the spine
out of its normal shape which
focuses stress and strain on one
section more than
another. The
section under greater stress and
strain will wear at an accelerated
rate, just like a car tire out of
alignment.
Furthermore,
prolonged sedentary periods of
sitting have been shown to suppress
important hormones and enzymes
which control fat metabolism in the
body, increasing the risk of an
array of serious health
problems.
5. Proper working posture while
sitting at your desk would properly
position your hands just forward of
your
knees.
False.
If your hands are positioned just
beyond your knees while sitting at
your desk, unless you have
abnormally long arms, chances are
you will be reaching forward and
sustaining a contraction of the
neck/shoulder
muscles. To
determine the correct working
position for your arms, simply
relax your upper arms by your sides
so that your shoulder muscles are
completely relaxed, then just bend
your elbow so your forearm is
parallel with the
floor. Where
ever you hands end up (typically
above the mid-thigh) is the proper
working position for your
hands.
6. The connective soft tissues that
hold your spine together have a
“memory.”
True.
If you take a piece of paper and fold
it repeatedly in the same place, and
later try to straightened it out again,
it will still want to curl up at the
fold. The paper has
a memory of where it was
folded. The
connective soft tissues of the body
work in a similar manner, in that they
adapt to the position you are most
often in and gradually start holding
you in that
position. As many
people tend to sit, stand, and lie down
in a similar forward bent posture
pattern, they eventually become shaped
that way.
7. Proper sitting requires that you
constantly monitor the correct
positions of your head, shoulders,
arms, and
back.
False.
Because your head, shoulders, and spine
all attach to your ribcage, all you
need to keep tract of is the proper
position of your ribcage, and
everything else will fall into
place. Slouching
posture drops the ribcage down and
proper posture keeps the ribcage
upright.
8. You should avoid sitting for longer
than thirty minutes at a
time.
True.
Your body needs motion to assist
important functions like circulation,
digestion, and respiration, and to
stimulate the
metabolism. Research
has shown that how often you take a
break to get some motion and interrupt
continuous sedentary time is more
important than the absolute amount of
sedentary time you are subjected
to.
9. Deskwork is a fairly neutral
activity.
False.
Deskwork is all about what is in
front of you and often what is down
in front of you.
Furthermore, most keyboard and
mouse devices require a palm-down
position that rotates the shoulders
and arms inward.
Therefore, deskwork tends to
encourage top to bottom and side to
side forward
rounding. Other
activities such as sitting and
driving, reading, or eating tend to
encourage the same forward rounded
posture─which is why
attention to posture, well designed
ergonomic chairs, and extension
stretching are
important.
10. Tight hamstring muscles in the back
of the thighs can contribute to poor
sitting
posture.
True.
The hamstring muscles attach to the
“sit bones” at the bottom
of your pelvis. When
the hamstring muscles are tight, they
pull on their attachment at the bottom
of the pelvis and promote backwards
tilting of the pelvis, thus rounding
out the natural inward lower back arch
and causing
slouching.
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