Try These Tips at the Stand Up Desk – How To Stand at a Stand Up Desk

All right. Hey guys. What's up? Happy Friday, folks. It's Stephen Dunn from CORE Therapy and Pilates and today I'm going to talk about stand up desk.

Many people are coming to me with back pain, neck pain, shoulder pain, et cetera.  They're sitting at a computer for many hours of the day and they're having back pain, they're having their pain from sitting. 

So, all the new rage is about stand up desk. So, I want to go over a little bit about a standing posture at a standup desk. Because most people don't know how to sit very well so their sitting posture is bad. 

Then they think, "Oh, I'll get a standup desk and that'll help my pain because I'm standing up." Well, guess what? If you have poor sitting posture, you probably are going to have poor standing posture. If you don't have very good strength in sitting, you probably don't have very good strength in standing.

So, with that said, I want to go over a couple little tricks for that. Now, with that said, we have my little standup desk right here. Now, what this is is this one's a Ergotron and it goes up and down. So, you can sit and then you can then lift it up to here. 

Now, once we lift it up to here, the question was I had the other day is how do my arms end up? How does my elbows end up? So, the key is bringing it up to where your elbows are at 90 degrees and your wrists are not cocked up like this. So, you don't want to have your wrists like this while you're working. They want to be nice and neutral.

Get your stand up desk here…

So, the scenario of right here, I've got my elbows at 90 degrees, I've got my wrist in a good position and the reality for me is that these monitors are a little low. They should be a little higher to create a lift. So, the monitor height, you want to be if you're standing at the top of your visual line.

That's a little low for me and my height. It works for the girls that work here. So, with standing, now let's go over a little bit of some standing tips.

I'm going to bring this down a little bit because most folks when they stand, they end up swaying their back and coming forward like this and they're kind of up on their tippy toes.

So, the scenario of right here, I've got my elbows at 90 degrees, I've got my wrist in a good position and the reality for me is that these monitors are a little low. They should be a little higher to create a lift. So, the monitor height, you want to be if you're standing at the top of your visual line

So, that's a little low for me and my height. It works for the girls that work here. So with standing, now let's go over a little bit of some standing tips. I'm going to bring this down a little bit.  Most folks when they stand, they end up swaying their back and coming forward like this and they're kind of up on their tippy toes.

So, that's a scenario where we want the back to be flat or in a neutral position. So, by lifting your toes up and leaning back into your heels, you get a lot more ...

You get your back into a much better stable position. So, as we're talking about postures for your standing, in my opinion, a lot of it comes from the feet. 

If you keep your weight back into your heels and keep the 90 degrees at the elbows, keep the wrists straight, keep the monitors at eye level. You're going to do a lot better through the course of the day than if you are sitting slouched over doing one of these numbers. 

So, that's my message for today. If you have any comments or concerns or questions, put them in the comments below and I'd be happy to get back to you with answers. You all have a fantastic day. Happy Friday, folks and have a great weekend. Peace.

If you are having pain with sitting at your desk, then it might be time to consider a stand up desk. My clients have been moving in that direction for years and now is as good as a time as ever to try something new!

Maybe you are ready to take the next step in your healing journey and it is time for you to talk to an expert in spinal pain.