Back Tight From Sitting? Do This For Immediate Relief

Dr. Alyssa Kuhn, physical therapist and arthritis expert, shows us how to ease things up:

Can we just shrug it off?

Sitting is famously not great for the back, but there are things we can do to make it feel better.

You don’t have to do all of these, but here’s a menu of things to try:

• Shoulder rolls: sit at the edge of a chair, and roll your shoulders backwards.
• Back extensions: put your hands behind your ears, bring your elbows together as you round your upper back slightly, then open your elbows wide and arch your back.
• Seated rows: reach your arms forwards with your palms facing each other, then pull your elbows backwards while keeping your shoulders down.
• Side body stretches: reach one hand beside your ear or overhead, lean sideways as far as comfortable, then use your muscles along the side of your torso to pull yourself upright before repeating on the other side.
• Arm circles: hold your arms out or keep your hands on your shoulders and make gentle circles.
• Breathing reset: let your arms relax heavily at your sides, and take slow deep breaths through your nose and out through your mouth, to relax tension and bring awareness to your posture.
• Chest openers: bend your elbows close to your body with your palms facing each other, then rotate your forearms open while squeezing your shoulder blades together.
• Gentle spine rotation reach: reach diagonally across your body while lightly turning your head towards your hand.
• Neck rolls: move your head slowly in gentle circles within a comfortable range of motion.
• Neck flexion and extension: slowly look upwards and then downwards.

For more on all of this plus visual demonstrations, enjoy:

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Want to learn more?

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Stiff After Sitting? Before You Stand Up, Do This For Easier First Steps

Take care!