If we were to ask you to 'sit up straight', what would your reaction be?
Recently, we worked with a woman who had suffering from chronic neck and back pain for 10 years.
I asked her to do a simple awareness exercise to further increase her awareness of her back muscles: She sat profile in a chair in front of a full-length mirror.
I asked her to “sit up straight.” “Just pretend you’re at work,” I said.
Then I had her close her eyes and gently arch, then slowly round her back, letting her pelvis and tailbone go along with the movement.
I asked her to slowly “sit up straight,” with her weight sitting on top of her “sit bones” – the bones at the bottom of the pelvis.
When she was sitting with her back relaxed and tall, I asked her how she felt. The answer wasn’t surprising: she felt “slumped.”
She had become so habituated to sitting with her back contracted, slightly forward of her pelvis, that sitting without the back contracted actually felt odd and unfamiliar!
Do you feel uncomfortable when you sit? Here is a simple sitting exercise that you can try at home to see if you can retrain your brand to sit tall, effortlessly👇🏼
