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A Simple Stretch

My job requires me to sit a lot. It's not a huge inconvenience or anything, but it's a well-known risk of my profession that it can lead to back pain and carpal tunnel. It's just one of those things that I have to watch out for.

For the most part, it's not a huge deal, especially since I do push ups every hour during the work day. Getting up at least once per hour helps to break up the long periods of sitting in the same position, so the longest amount of time that I'm seated in the same position is about an hour. I hadn't intended those push ups to be a posture and ergonomic thing, but I'll happily take the side effects.

Still, there's only so much that a quick break from sitting can do, so I started looking into ways to tweak my posture. I mean, why not be proactive about stretches and exercises to try to prevent harm? What's the worst that can happen? I have a stronger back?

As it just so happens, I found a YouTuber that seems to have some good suggestions on general fitness recently, so I looked up his videos to see if he had anything for posture. As it turned out, he did. Now, I'll mention that I saw his stuff referenced on a random Reddit thread, and the feedback was overwhelmingly favorable. Lots of people seemed to appreciate his positive vibe and the fact that he had legitimately useful tips. So, I figured I'd give it a go.

One of the first things he suggested was an exercise where you stand with your back to the wall and lift your arms. It sounds really simple, but he suggested it as a first step to try to strengthen your back muscles. So, I started there. If it was as easy as it sounded, then I'd just move on to the next exercise. If not, well, I knew what to work on.

It hurt.

You know how some people say the first time they do yoga it hurts like hell because they're working muscles in new ways? Yeah, it was like that. I stood there, with my back to the wall, and it was surprisingly difficult to get my hands up. I didn't want to cheat by arching my back, so I basically felt those muscles in my back protest from being used in ways they hadn't been before.

On the one hand, it is disappointing to realize that those particular muscles need that much work. However, the flip side of that is that I can feel the progress because I'm in the earlier stages of strengthening those muscles. About a week later, I could actually start to feel when my shoulders started to slouch forward. It's kind of cool to literally be able to feel the progress.

That said, you better believe I'm going to keep doing this stretch. I'm not trying to turn a blind eye now that I know that my upper back needs work and how to fix it.

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