Sitting and standing up without complaints

Suppose you are healthy in body and limb, and still have back problems while sitting and especially when standing up: how is that possible? The cause then lies in the 'how', as is often the case with unexplained complaints.

Complaints when sitting

We assume that the furniture is in order: chair, table at good height, necessities such as a computer screen are in the right place. There is a lot of talk about poor posture when sitting. I find that striking because bad postures do not exist: any posture that the body can adopt is basically ok. The problem with the development of back problems in a healthy body has to do with the 'how': too often, too long and too much. One-sidedness in loading leads to overload and complaints in the long run. Variation in posture, activities and sufficient breaks are important to avoid this overload. For example, a high-low desk can be a good tool: half an hour of sitting, half an hour of standing, a break, and so on. A lot of changing of postures while sitting is also important so that the same structures do not have to process the same pressure, stretch or tension every time.

Complaints when standing up

To understand how symptoms can arise when standing up, despite a healthy body, it is interesting to dissect getting up from a chair. Most people get up like this:

• Bending over from the hips and back
• Bottom goes up from the chair
• Getting up with curved low back
• Finally, the low back is stretched.

This is a movement forward and up against gravity with an acceleration. Because the lower back is curved, the back muscles are not at their strongest and have to perform a relatively large amount of work. These three elements together: gravity, acceleration and curved back pose a risk for the complaints when standing up. The reason that standing up is carried out in this way is because when we get up we want to have our weight above the future support surface (the feet) because otherwise we lose balance.

How to do it?

The answer is simple: make sure that the center of gravity of the body is already above the support surface of the feet before standing up. In this way, the back does not have to bend but can remain in the stretched position. The load is now shifted to the muscles of the thighs. Procedure:

• Stretch the back
• Slide to the edge of the seat
• Put one foot right under the body (the other foot a little closer)
• Get up by stretching the knee of the leg of the foot under the chair.

With a technically good execution, there is no more bending of the low back or hips. A tricky point is not to strain the non-standing up leg: you use this leg for balance. With a good execution, the thigh muscles of the leg will struggle a bit at first: they are not used to this load. Exercises such as cycling and climbing stairs can help with this.

Sources

Lagerberg A, Riezebos C, Leseman S. Zitten en opstaan. Versus, 13e jrg 1995, no. 4 (pp. 219 - 238)