Weak deep posture supporting base

The muscles which tend to get weak in computer users are those deeper, closer to the centre of your body posture stabilisers. This is a significant problem given that they need to be working properly to help you keep your musculoskeletal health. The deeper the muscle is in your body the better it is at holding you up while seated at your desk, supporting your back and supporting your posture.

The most important posture supporting muscles are the deep muscles around your abdomen, waist, hips, buttocks and a deep back stabilising muscle called multifidus, which runs right along your back and neck, deep inside your body.

When you are walking, jogging, getting up from the chair, sitting down, standing on one leg, surfing or playing tennis, the deep postural muscles in your body work hard to keep you stable, as if to stop you from falling. Various physical activities are a fantastic workout for them. If you, however, spend most of your days sitting on a firm base chair, and after work you travel home by car or train seated, at home sit on the sofa, the stabilising body musculature has very little work to do. The deep body base finally becomes weak, saggy and stops supporting your body.

Overworked and tense upper body

When this major support base goes, your upper back rounds up and your upper body shifts forward. As the upper body including the neck shifts forward, the healthy S shaped back turns into a rounded C letter. The hollow around the lumbar spine flattens or even disappears. Your head weighs around 10lbs so now the muscles around your neck and back have to work really hard to stop your head from falling forward or back with the force of gravity. This creates increased neck and upper body tension. Some upper body muscles start to overwork, get tight and achy. This can have rather pronounced effects. There are vital blood vessels and nerves (the branchial plexus) which run in between muscles in the neck (scalenes), into the arms and hands. When scalenes are too tight, you may feel numbness, pain and tingling all the way down your arms and even hands. Even though these symptoms are felt down your limbs the actual problem comes from the neck. Excess upper body tension can also be caused by working with your shoulders raised, elbows held away from your body when you work with your computer, and by excessive stress levels.