Sitting posture: A recap

Physical therapy

﻿Hi there. My name is Sophie Brazier, I'm a children's physiotherapist. Thank you very much for joining me today. Where we are going to be continuing talking about posture. And we will be looking more specifically at sitting posture. So during this lesson, we'll start off with a recap about sitting posture. Then we will look at some tips for sitting posture and we'll finish with an idea and activity of an exercise to show you that can help you with your sitting posture. So all you need for this activity is yourself and perhaps a chair that you can do the activity in. And when you're ready, we can make a start. I would just like to give you a little message from our team. We as therapists, have tried to think of the best way to continue to support children, young people and their families. So you may be watching this as a child by yourself, or you might be with a parent or carer. We will be exploring topic areas that we regularly provide advice and support on across all ages and abilities. And each lesson we will aim to give you some ideas and activities that can be carried out either at home or in school. You may already have specific programmes that you're using or advice that has been given to you by your child's school or therapist. So please make sure that you're using any information I'm giving you alongside anything you already have. And if you do have any questions or would like help tailoring this to their needs, then please make sure you get in contact with your local therapy service. I think it would be good to begin with a recap of what is sitting posture. So sitting posture is the position in which you hold your body when you are sitting. It is when key parts of your body are correctly aligned. So that's thinking about your hips, your knees, your feet, and also your shoulders and your head and neck. And also it is when a good sitting posture is supported by the right amount of muscle tension. and your muscles are working in a way to hold your body in that position. And the last point there, and one that I think is the most important is that your sitting posture is individual to you. And that means that your posture may be different to someone else's, but that is what works for you and what is comfortable for you. And as long as you are in a good alignment and you're maintaining those cards, then it doesn't matter if your posture is different to somebody else's. And that's an eight. I took you through these steps, just looking at what an ideal or good sitting posture should be. And the point is to remember. So let's go through it again. So the first point there, maintaining eye level. This just means having your eyes at the same height as where you're working. So if you're working at a desk with a computer or a laptop, you want to have your eyes at a good level for the screen. You don't really want to be looking down here at a screen, because then you're going to be putting a stretch on the back of your neck. And ideally you need to have your neck and your back lengthened. So nice way to think about this and remember, is think up and growing tall. And something that's I've talked about before, is imagine that somebody has a piece of string attached to the top of your head, and they are pulling you up by the string. So you can think up and growing tall rather than sitting dead upright or bolt upright. So that can be quite a nice way to try and think about it. And the last point there, think your head is light and you're lifting like a balloon. So imagine that your head is, doesn't weigh anything and that it's not putting any pressure down in your body. And then you can, when you think about that, your shoulders will relax and you can have a nice aligned posture. So three points to remember, three things to think about for your sitting posture. Check your study area. So this is before you start some work, either at home or at school, make sure you don't have lots of clutter that you're having to twist and turn to get things. And that you've got things at a good height so that you can maintain those good postures. The second point there, take breaks. So this is remembering to build in those movement breaks, because if you're sat in an uncomfortable position for a long period of time, this is going to make you less focused and then you won't be able to learn as well. And the last point there, exercises and stretches. Remember to try and keep active as much as you can. And if you have any stretches or an exercise programme that have been given to you by a therapist, please try and make sure that you're doing them and just build small amounts into your day, and then things will become easier. There's now going to be a demonstration of an activity, a sitting posture exercise. So I'd like you to try this activity at your desk or workspace and the activity is some nice shoulder rolls. Okay, I'll just demonstrate some exercises in a sitting position that you could try perhaps in a chair, sat at your desk or your workspace, or you could perhaps do them just in any sitting position. Perhaps if your shoulders are feeling a little bit stiff or you want to correct your posture and wake those muscles up. So the first exercise I'm going to show you is some shoulder rolls. So they're nice and gentle and nice and easy. You're going to get in a good seated position. You can, I find it easy to bend my elbows and put my hands on my shoulders and you can draw some circles with your elbow. So I'm going to take, come forward with my elbows and then come back and then come forward. So you're really getting a good stretch like that. And then you could come the other way, so you can come backwards and then bring it up as forwards. So you can come backwards and then bring it up as forwards. You can do it with your arms by your side, or you can go the other way. So again, you're imagining bringing your shoulders up towards your ears and then down. So you're getting all those muscles in your shoulders working, so rolling those shoulders. There are a couple of ways to extend or simplify this activity that I'm going to tell you about now. So to make the activity a little bit harder, perhaps increase the number of exercises that you're doing. I'm going to show you two exercises that you can also try. So the first one is a body twist. So just in a seated position, you can put one hand to the side and you're going to look over your shoulder like that. And you'll feel a stretch down that part of your back. So you can either place your hand across onto the opposite thigh and reach over, and then hold the stretch for a few seconds and come back to the middle. Then you can do the same with the other side. So reach over and you're going to twist in your back and look over your shoulder. Another way to do it is you could put your arms out in front of you and you can twist and look over your shoulder and then back to the middle. And then you can twist to the other side and back to the middle. So making sure you start it off slowly, and then you can increase the twist if you'd like. The second one is a side stretch. So here, we're just going to be reaching down to the opposite side and you'll feel a stretch on the opposite side of your body. And you're going to come back and then we're going to do a side stretch. So you're stretching the opposite side of the body. So you can do those a few times and see how you get on. If you'd like to make the activity a little bit easier, you could just concentrate on one exercise and perhaps take an exercise each day and try a few repetitions. And over a period of a week you could build those up. Also, another idea is to just keep the activity really simple and perhaps begin with the shoulder rolls and maybe build up your confidence doing those first. If you pause the video now, you can give those a try and see how you get on. We'll just go through again, how to extend and simplify the exercise. So you can make the exercise more challenging by adding in a few while sitting. And as demonstrated you could do a body twist or a side stretch. To make the activity a little bit easier, you could just concentrate on one exercise and perhaps take one a day and build up slowly. And as with all of these exercises, to make them easier, you can simply lower the number of that you do, so lower the number of repetitions, or do them for less time. If you'd like to try some of those variations, just pause the video again, and then you can have a go at those and join me afterwards. Well done, if you gave that activity a try. I find that that exercise can be nice if your shoulders are feeling a little bit stiff and even doing it sometimes first thing in the morning can be really useful. So thank you very much for joining me today. That's now the end of our lesson. Please join me next time, where we will be looking and starting to talk about standing posture. So all that leaves me to say is I hope you have a good day, take care, and I will see you soon. Goodbye.

Sitting posture: A recap

Sitting posture: A recap

These resources were made for remote use during the pandemic, not classroom teaching.

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