El Paso it’s Dr. David, physical therapist from El Paso Manual Physical Therapy. I’m at our front desk right now, I wanted to show you guys one of the common problems that we see with back pain and posture. A question we get all the time is my back pain gets worse and worse as I sit more all day long. I want to give you guys 4 tips for helping your back posture, especially if you’ve got back problems.

Tip number 1:  fidget frequently. I don’t mean in a bad way, like it looks weird. I just mean, change your positions, lean on the desk, lean back, lean right, lean left. Lean in, lean out, move frequently. One of the worst things for you, especially if you have to sit at a desk job most of the day is to stay in the same position all day long. Even if it’s really good posture, staying in the same position actually makes your back problems worse over time. Our bodies are designed to move, so even if you can fidget, move around a little bit here and there, that helps back problems so much in the long time.

Tip number 2: use your abs, you can turn sitting in to an ab workout if you just suck in your abs a little bit, about 25 percent and try to hold it as you continue working at your desk, it helps tremendously. This can also be done while driving, if you suck in your abs a little bit, not so much that it makes you not breathe well or talk well, I’m doing it right now as I’m talking. It helps with your posture and one funny thing that people tell me about this all the time is that they feel like they’re slouching. When you suck in your abs it actually makes your chest come down a little bit and it may cause a slouch in your upper back, but that’s okay, as long as you’re using your abs. Because your abs are so important for controlling your spine, and taking pressure off your back.

Tip number 3: go exercise when you’re not sitting, especially if you’ve got a desk job, it’s so critical that you have some time very frequently, possibly every day that you have a desk job, so Monday to Friday to go to the gym or at home, or wherever you like to do it. Have some time where you exercise a good amount, 15 minutes is a good amount. But if you can up that to 20, 30, 45 or 60 minutes that’s even better. It’s just a battle all the time that you’re relatively still have some time where you go out and move quite a bit to off set all of the sitting you might be doing during the day.

Tip number 4: get expert help, if you’ve got an active back problem and you go to the end of the day sitting at the desk and your back just gets worse and worse as the day goes on, and there’s no changing your sitting in the near future, it doesn’t mean that the desk job or that the sitting is the problem, it just means you need to make sure you talk to an expert so that you can address your back problem. So that you can continue to work or continue to sit as long as you need to and be able to protect your back for the long term.

The last thing we need is that you’re relying on pain medications especially the anti inflammatory ones, they can mess with your gut. We don’t want you getting surgery or injections in your spine. We want you to have an active life where you feel like you can do whatever you want and your back pain is not going to slow you down. Feel free to go to our website and download any of our free resources. We’ve got an e-book there that you can sign up for and instantly get emailed to you. That email covers the top 10 back pain tips that we give to our clients. You can also give us a call and ask about a free discovery visit. You can have a chance to meet with a specialist physical therapist, so that you can discuss your back problem and know that you’re headed in the right direction.

I hope you have a wonderful day, bye bye!