The Dangers of Poor Desk Posture: Why Sitting is Bad for Your Back

If you work at your desk for long hours, it’s tempting to flop into a comfy, slouched position as you sit, perched on your tailbone with your back rounded. This all-too-common office posture may feel like “Aahh!” But as far as your back is concerned, it is more like a big, resounding “Ouch!!!!”

For starters, sitting isn’t at all great for your overall posture and the strength of your core posture muscles. Recent studies show that prolonged sitting—particularly the slouched desk posture we often slump into—may actually contribute to low back pain and chronic back problems.

The activities of modern life require us to be seated for most of the day, whether we are working on the computer, writing, reading, watching TV, socializing, etc. However, from an evolutionary stand point, our body isn’t really built for sitting. Humans have been around for almost 200,000 years. While the first chairs were created thousands of years ago, they have only been in common use for about 500 years. The chair was originally an item denoting high position and authority, a status symbol and not for the common man. That changed during the Renaissance period, and today, of course, chairs are a major part of our lives.

Whether we find ourselves in office chairs, soft couches, recliners, or even the back-wrecking bean bag, most of the day we are sitting – and our bodies were not built to sit for long hours at a time.

It doesn’t help that many chairs actually promote bad desk posture, encouraging the typical slouching, rounded upper back, forward head posture, and rounded lower back. Unless you know the basic mechanics of posture support and general good seating habits, long hours of sitting at your desk every day can set you up for lower back pain and chronic back problems down the road.

Why is prolonged sitting so bad for your back? Here are some of the main reasons.

Prolonged Sitting Starves Your Spine

Your spine is comprised of many individual vertebrae; each vertebra is separated from each other by intervertebral discs. These discs are like shock absorbers for the spine, and they also keep the spinal joints lubricated so that movements are smooth. For the discs to function properly, there must be adequate lubricating gel inside the discs, which is what gives them the spongy, bouncy quality they need to protect the spine.
Herein lies the crux of the matter: the intervertebral discs don’t have their own blood supply to provide the critical oxygen and nutrients they need to stay healthy. Rather, they rely on movement to for fresh blood to flow in and supply nourishment, and remove waste products.

When we sit with poor desk posture for prolonged periods of time, the circulation of vital nutrients to the discs decreases. If this happens day in and day out, year after year, the discs eventually dry out and lose their flexibility and suppleness. This sets you up for a lot of serious back pain problems in the long run, including degenerative disc disease, spinal stenosis, arthritis of the spine, disc herniation, and more.

Prolonged Sitting Squeezes Your Spine

Poor sitting habits, particularly poor desk posture also create increased pressure on the vertebral discs, compressing them and further starving them from nutrients. Due to the increased pressure, more fluid moves out of the discs (along with precious nutrients), and very little fluid is able to move in to replenish this loss.

The Swedish Back School measured various pressure points on the spine in different postures and found that most pressure was applied on the core of the disc between the third and fourth lumbar vertebra. Interestingly, the pressure on this area (in a man weighing about 160 lbs) was found to be 100 kp/cm2 while standing, 250 kp/cm2 while sitting bent forward, and decreased to 50 kp/cm2 when lying prone on the stomach.

Needless to say, the pressure only increases when we bend, lift weights and twist the spine. All this sets the stage for disc injury, low back pain, and again, degenerative disease.

Poor Desk Posture Hurts Your Spine

To add insult to injury, most of sit in a way that increases the pressure in all the wrong places, and actually multiplies our chance of getting an injury. The spine is designed with a natural curve in the lower back, which balances the weight of the upper part of the body on the lower back and minimizes wear and tear. When we slouch back into a hunched desk posture, we reverse the lumbar curve, putting increased pressure on the intervertebral discs, and increasing our chance of injury even further. The rounded shoulders and forward head posture don’t help one bit either.

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