How often do you suffer? Waking up all the time with pain? Going to bed with pain. Having spent thousands of dollars on various gismos, gyms and practitioners. Exhausted from doing those same time consuming exercises that just don’t seem to be making a difference anyway!
Back pain can come from the simplest places and are often resolved by simply removing some bad habits that we may have picked up.
Sitting is a major stress on the pelvis and spine, this is enhanced by unsupportive couches and chairs and create years of irresolvable chronic pain.
To try and stabilize this, the body uses our core structure consisting of our abdominal muscles, hip flexors, diaphragm and other intrinsic muscles. This constant contraction whilst sitting can lead to the fatigue of these muscles and eventual strain.
Whilst strengthening can help improve the assistance of other surrounding muscles, to truly resolve the problem, function needs to be restored to a normal level. To do this requires the removal of whatever is causing the strain, in this case most notably the lack of pelvic support.
There are many mistakes we see with chair design. For example, the base of the chair tilts backward creating a need to lean back rather than forward, height being too high or too low and backrests too far.
Couches though are a whole new ball game. In addition to the above, most people when sitting on couches have their favorite spot. The constant weight on the same spot can lead to softening of the base cushion reducing support, but this is not the biggest problem we see.
Picture yourself on your favorite spot. What are you doing? For most, they are usually leaning on the arm rest or laying down sideways supporting their weight on an arm bending their spines like a banana!
The result of this is the need for the body to engage the core to stabilize your pelvis. This constant contraction over time can lead to fatigue and muscle strain patterns.
Here are our top tips to prevent furniture pain:
- Check the supportiveness of you chairs and couches every 12 months
- If sitting on furniture feels fatiguing it’s probably not supporting you
- Soft isn’t good, pretty doesn’t make it great
Not sure the best way to follow our tips? Just message us and we’ll help you out!
