Should You Get A Standing Desk?
There has been a huge emergence of standing desks in the past two years as more people are working from home.
We know now that sitting even in the best position is not ideal for our spines and our posture. It compresses the discs especially in the low back. It causes the heads to tip forwards, thus affecting the neck and can also cause degeneration throughout the spine if sitting is done for long periods over many years.
It is one of the most important positions for us to get right and a lot of us have to do it for work. We sit for 8 plus hours per day in order to work and it is essential for most people.
When you sit, the front of the hip compresses and this can cause hip flexor issues, causing the back to tighten up.
A lot of people don’t have the correct desk or chair setup at home which can then put more pressure on the base of the spine and the shoulders.
Even with proper ergonomic desk setup, we still develop issues with back and neck disc stress and injury.
So office workers are starting to take matters into their hands and the emergence of the standing desks has come.
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What is a standing desk?
It’s a desk that can go up and down, it has adjustable legs on the sides and it allows desk workers to be able to stand for periods of time and then put it back down to sitting position when they need to rest.
What are the benefits of a standing desk?
They can decompress the base of the spine because you’re standing. It allows the core to activate, the glutes to activate to hold the spine upright. When you’re sitting the glutes aren’t active and that can cause them to become lazy. The glutes are the main drivers of hip extension to keep you nice and upright and when sitting are not working a lot of the time and the back muscles will start to overwork and don’t switch off causing problems.
Standing desks allow these muscles to develop, get stronger and toned. This helps with your core strength. It helps with your back strength and the pelvic floor strength long term.
The more you can stand up with a decent position with the elbows locked in at 90 degrees at the same height as the desks. Bringing the shoulder blades back, tucking the chin in, not down. This is the perfect position to be standing at the desk.
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Often what can happen is as you get tired, the legs may get tired because they’re not used to it and you start to slump over the desk. When this is the case, you need to bring the desk back down to a sitting position. It’s really important that you do this. Otherwise, it becomes counterproductive.
I would recommend if you’re starting out, to have 15 minutes of standing desk, 45 of sitting and then gradually increase that number week by week, so maybe get to half an hour of standing desk and then half an hour of sitting desk until you’re standing up for the majority of the day as your body gets more conditioned and much more adapted to standing position.
In terms of where to get them, this is a good link for one here. You can get starter desks for around £300.
But I would suggest to starting out low and then if you find that it can really benefit you or you can try one, then obviously you go for more. If you need any help, give us a shout.
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