So they say that sitting too much shortens your life and all that. They also say that most of us sit incorrectly. I know I do. I constantly slide my butt forward and slouch. And I was thinking, what I need is a seat belt to keep me from sliding forward. But such a thing doesn’t seem to exist. There must be some problem with them that I am missing. Since Lemmy has lots of desk jockeys, I figured I would ask here.
If you rely on some kind of harness to hold you up, you’re not using your muscles properly
You’re gonna end up with different muscle problems if you rely on it to hold you in place for long periods of time Vs just sitting and supporting yourself naturally
Sure, but I already have significant muscle problems… But I wasn’t looking for a harness, more like a belt that would be uncomfortable if I tried to slide my butt forward. So more like a reminder…
There are solutions for this, but they’re a little more abstract. Like some people sit on yoga balls instead of chairs. They force you to keep your muscles engaged all the time lest you fall over.
They even have some designed to be desk chairs. https://www.sithealthier.com/products/classic-balance-ball-chair
There are also sit/stand desks.
Take your belt off and wrap it around the back of the chair and your waist.
I work from home… what belt… they are lucky I wear pants. :)
When I had really bad posture and decided to start fixing it I would just set a timer for like 5 minutes, when it goes off posture check and reset, once you get used to it do ever 15 minutes, then 30 etc… now years later if I slouch in my chair for more than a few minutes it feels really uncomfortable and I sit back up
Why don’t desk chairs have seat belts?
Because unlike in cars there isn’t much chair accidents? ;)
More seriously, no seat belt can help you sit correctly in a chair. What can help you, easily and cheaply, is sitting less. Regularly make breaks and get up, move do stuff that you can do standing up. This one is not cheap but using one of those sit/stand desks can help in that regard — I consider mine the second best health spending I ever made, the first one being: good walking shoes (another great habit for one’s health is to walk as much and as regularly as one can).
I actually have a sit stand desk. And do use it some. But I have some issues with my hips and SI joints. Standing without walking gets painful pretty fast.
My advice would be to go to a rolfer and tell them about these issues.
I actually have a sit stand desk. And do use it some. But I have some issues with my hips and SI joints. Standing without walking gets painful pretty fast.
It can sure get painful quickly. A few things worth considering:
- Do you use one of those dedicated mat to stand on? I don’t know the English name for those, but they do sell padded mats made to stand up on them. They help increase the duration of my standing position. Even more so if you also regularly switch your weight form one leg to the other, or just move on that mat. Get a good mat as it will help more.
- Don’t force yourself to make long standing sessions, make them shorter but more frequent? Standing should not hurt.
For me (50+ dude that was in really poor shape and health when I started), what matters is to regularly get my ass out of that chair for 10 or 15 minutes, sometimes more but as long as I have my 10 minutes I’m happy. Be it to stand at the desk or to do stuff around the office/home. It’s the regularity, making it into a habit, that I find the most helpful. At the beginning I used a timer to remind myself to stand up and, yep, it was a pain to get constantly interrupted by that stupid alarm but since it seemed to help my back (edit: and knee and feet) a little I kept on using it up until the day I realized I needed it no more. I don’t think about it, I just regularly move my ass out of that chair — ad I use one of those mats I mentioned.
I don’t know about your specific situation so this may not apply at all, but getting back into walking also helped me immensely (as does help wearing good shoes: the day I switched to better walking shoes my endurance skyrocketed). That and healthier eating habits were key in me getting back into some kind of shape and health despite starting real low: I barely could walk at all.
Not exaggerating, I celebrated like if I was Armstrong stepping on the Moon, the first time I managed to walk down and back our street without being exhausted and without my joints, back and feet hurting so much for the next few days that I had to lay down (it was that bad). Nowadays, I walk up to 10 km daily, never less than 6. Sure, I’m no athlete and my health issues won’t go away ever but what matters is that most of my chronicle pains have vanished almost entirely, even the most enduring ones that plagued me for… decades. And I can move around and use my body almost normally. I also lost a hefty chunk of fat, which is a neat bonus ;)
Sorry for that too long reply to your comment. It’s just something I consider so worth talking about ;)
Those mats are called anti-fatigue mats in English. OP definitely needs one of these if they don’t already have one.
Thx for the clarification.
Yeah, I have the mat. And walking is fine. I can walk pretty far with no issues. Standing still is painful though. And I know it is weak core muscles. But the exercises to strengthen them cause the si joints to hurt 24/7. My pt struggled to find stuff to help. And I do those, but they just don’t seem to be enough. As for working up to longer and longer standing times, I have adhd, and such things are near impossible, I’ve tried. So I need more like physical reminders that can’t be ignored. Like belt… could put spikey stuff on it so when I slide forward I will feel it and be inclined to slide back. That is where I was going with this.
Invest in a treadmill. /s
I actually have one and tried. But it is too hard to type while walking.
sitting too much shortens your life
No.
Only the pain-free part of your life.
what I need is a seat belt to keep me from sliding forward.
You need the opposite. More motion instead of more stillness.
Move your spine, move your butt, move all your weight. Never sit totally still.
In addition, do some stretching excercises for your spine regularly, every morning or every evening.
If you have the means, an adjustable desk can allow alternating between sitting and standing.
Kettle bell swings are fun and good for this too!
But definitely learn how to do them correctly before just going HAM with them, otherwise you’ll probably just throw out your back.
You would use your stabilizing core muscles even less if you were belted in, I would think. I’ve found core strengthening exercises to be the best thing for my desk posture. Also, sitting on a yoga ball pretty much forces good posture. I used to play video games while sitting on one
Yeah, possibly on the core muscles stuff. But the shoulder and neck pain is getting really bad. In theory I would be able to loosen the belt a bit so that it isn’t holding me up, just “reminding” me to keep my butt back in the chair where it belongs. I have tried yoga balls and a variety of chairs that are supposed to “force” you to sit up right. I always managed to end up in an even worse posture whenever I got deeply into the code.
But the shoulder and neck pain is getting really bad.
I always managed to end up in an even worse posture
This indicates that something is wrong with your posture in general.
Find a specialist (maybe chiropractor or osteopathic) who can help you to fix that.
Been going for years. I have exercises I do… but they say it could take more than a year for the soft tissue to correct itself this way.
I feel you. Sometimes I think I can’t properly debug unless I’m leaning into the monitor
You can’t slouch when wearing a seat belt?
If it’s one of those race car 6 point belts it’s pretty much impossible.
“Why don’t desk chairs have a 5-point harness?” 😂
Clearly OP had never taken a ride in a car
Well, I figured it would at least keep my butt back where it belongs, and maybe that would reduce the slouching. I also have a problem with my shoulders… seems when I slide forward, the arms of the chair are closer to my shoulders causing all sorts of issues.
But there are chairs with belts: https://cdnimg.webstaurantstore.com/images/products/large/484889/1942569.jpg
Much like a bicycle it is more practical and safe to use a helmet when sitting on a chair than it is to have a seatbelt. Seatbelts are more useful when restraining someone in a safe enclosed space whereas on a bike, motorcycle or office chair it could cause more harm than without if a serious accident occurs.
Your speaking of sitting at a desk correct?
Have you tried a standing desk? Can’t sit forward if your not sitting. Otherwise the best thing to do is to muster the willpower to change your sitting habits, it’s like quiting smoking without the neck scratching. It isn’t easy to change posture but your body will thank you.
As someone who uses a standing desk, its still possible to have shitty posture at a standing desk lol. Im leaning over, standing on one food, hunched forward. Sometimes head down on desk, depending what sort of shit Im dealing with in the moment.
yep. I have a sit/stand desk. My posture is still crap when I stand. And then new things hurt along with the old.
