For the longest time, I thought my daily gym routine made up for the fact that I spent the whole day sitting at work. I thought it didn’t matter that I wasn’t burning calories or promoting good blood circulation at work, because I was dealing with that on my own time. And I may have been mostly right about those things; I worked out hard, challenging my muscles and my lungs, building strength and promoting blood flow, fighting off what I thought were the main detriments of a seated lifestyle. But I also suffered from severe – sometimes debilitating – back pain resulting from a herniated lumbar disc, and I had always attributed this injury to a combination of genetics and heavy deadlifts (and maybe too many backflips). My back hurt like hell when I was sitting, and even worse when I stood up from sitting, but I viewed this as a symptom of my condition rather than a cause.

During the saga of my herniated disc treatment, I had the opportunity to work with an excellent physical therapist who brought my attention to a particular feature of my posture: my lower back was excessively arched – far more than the gradual curve of a healthy lumbar spine. Unlike my “nerd neck”, this element of my posture wasn’t just a matter of habit; I couldn’t stand for very long without my back arching, even when I was conscious of it. My days of sitting with my legs at a 90-degree angle had left my hip flexors so tight that they would pull down on the front of my pelvis when I stood, which in turn arched my back and put pressure on the rear side of my lumbar discs.

The anterior pelvic tilt caused by sitting turns healthy activities into unhealthy ones. Running hurt my discs when my back was excessively arched. So did lifting weights. Even walking and standing caused strain.

So, how do you fix this problem?

STAND!!! Find a way to work standing up, by any means necessary. There are stretches you can perform (such as lunges) to reverse the tightness caused by sitting, but 8-12 hours of daily sitting is a lot to counteract, especially if you’re like me and not naturally very flexible. If you must sit down, try to use a kneeling posture chair (search it on Amazon or Google if you’re not familiar). By putting you into a semi-kneeling position, these chairs help you avoid developing tight hip flexors and anterior pelvic tilt. They can also encourage a more upright and kyphosis-free posture, and take some of your weight off your lower back when compared to an ordinary desk chair. But although they’re helpful, these chairs are no substitute for good old standing. Posture chairs still leave your hamstrings in a shortened position, causing them to become chronically tight, and they don’t allow the bones of your lower legs to bear weight the way they were meant to.