A Healthy Back for People Who Sit at Computers

by Al Wadleigh and Jack Heggie

Editor’s Note

This article was one of the earliest pieces published on this site and was written in collaboration with my friend and mentor Jack Heggie. Jack was a sports writer and movement educator who explored how small changes in coordination can dramatically improve comfort and performance.

The ideas in this article helped shape the development of the Feldenkrais Method® audio program A Healthy Back, which introduces gentle Awareness Through Movement® lessons that help people rediscover ease in sitting, standing, and everyday activity.

Key Takeaways

• Back pain from sitting is often related to habitual patterns of tension and coordination.
• Forcing yourself to sit up straight is usually tiring and ineffective.
• Small changes in how you organize your feet, hips, and spine can dramatically affect comfort.
• The Feldenkrais Method® uses awareness and movement to improve posture naturally.
• Better coordination often leads to easier sitting, less strain, and greater comfort.

A Healthy Back for People Who Sit and Work at Computers

When you work at a desk or computer for long hours, tension and stress in your neck, shoulders, and back can slowly become an obstacle to a productive and enjoyable day.

Most people go through their workday without noticing how much tension they have accumulated. We are often unaware of our posture, how we are sitting, how much tension we are holding in our shoulders, or how tight our necks have become until the discomfort becomes too strong to ignore.

We usually wait until we are already in pain before we try to do something about it.

Spending day after day with this kind of accumulated tension can eventually lead to chronic discomfort. Over time it can interfere with both work and daily life and may even require medical attention.

A Different Way to Address Back Tension

Sports author Jack Heggie developed A Healthy Back, a series of gentle movement lessons designed to increase the range of motion and flexibility of the spine while reducing unnecessary tension.

These exercises can be done while sitting in a chair at home or at work. No special clothing or equipment is required — just a chair and a few minutes of attention.

As people practice these movements, they often discover that they sit more comfortably, move with greater ease, and feel more relaxed throughout the day.

Why Most Back Pain Solutions Are Temporary

When discomfort becomes too strong, people usually respond by trying to relieve the pain directly.

• take a pain reliever
• stretch the painful area
• seek massage or chiropractic care
• receive medical treatment

These approaches can certainly help. But in many cases they only provide temporary relief.

An aspirin wears off. A stretch may feel good for a while, but the tension quickly returns. Even hands-on treatment often needs to be repeated.

Why?

Because we typically go right back to sitting and moving the same way we did before. The same patterns that created the tension simply recreate the problem.

Addressing the Source of the Problem

“If your only treatment for pain is medication, then you’re not really dealing with the cause,” explains Dr. Bob Rountree of Helios Health Center in Boulder, Colorado.

The Feldenkrais approach addresses the issue differently.

Rather than forcing yourself into a position or fighting tension directly, this method helps you learn easier and more coordinated ways to move.

When movement becomes more efficient:

• tension decreases
• posture improves naturally
• sitting becomes easier
• movement feels lighter and more comfortable

Often, this happens without effort.

Habitual Patterns of Movement

“We tend to move the same way over and over, only using a small percentage of our whole range of movement possibilities.”

If you work at a desk or computer for many hours each day, you may repeat the same pattern of tension hour after hour and day after day. Over time, this repetition can lead to chronic discomfort.

The encouraging news is that movement habits can change.

Through gentle exploratory movements, people can discover new and more efficient ways to organize themselves.

Why Posture Is Hard to “Fix”

Many people try to solve back discomfort by forcing themselves to “sit up straight.”

But posture is largely an automatic function.

The systems in the brain that organize posture operate mostly outside conscious control. When we try to hold ourselves upright through effort, we usually recruit muscles that are not designed for long-term support.

That is why maintaining a “correct posture” through effort often feels tiring and unnatural.

In contrast, when coordination improves, posture reorganizes automatically.

The Role of Habit

Most of our sitting and movement patterns were learned unconsciously.

They developed gradually through:

• imitation of others
• emotional habits
• injuries or past experiences
• repeated daily activities

Because these patterns operate outside awareness, they can quietly produce strain for years.

Gentle movement exploration helps bring these patterns into awareness so they can begin to change.

What We Practice Is What We Learn

One of the key ideas behind these exercises is simple:

We become good at whatever we practice.

If we practice sitting with tension and strain, we become very skilled at sitting with tension and strain.

But if we practice moving with ease and attention, we begin to develop new patterns that are lighter, more coordinated, and more efficient.

That is why these lessons emphasize:

• slow movement
• gentle exploration
• paying attention to comfort and ease

When people learn in this way, improvement often happens more quickly and more naturally.

A Simple Experiment in Sitting

Here is a short experiment you can try right now.

Sitting in a Chair Exercise

How to build a foundation for good posture

Have you ever noticed how you sit in a chair? Are you aware of how the placement of your feet affects how straight you sit? Many of us spend more time sitting than almost anything else, yet most people are barely aware of how they do it.

Try the following exercise:

1) Sit in a firm chair. As you sit there, stick your feet way out in front on the floor. Notice what the rest of your self does when you stick your feet out. Without really thinking about it, you will probably find that you lean back against the chair.

2) Now try pulling your feet in underneath the chair. You may notice that you sit up and actually lean forward a little.

3) There is a connection between the angle of the knee joint and the angle of the hip joint. They tend to reflect each other. If you stick your feet out so that the knee joint gets straighter, you lean back, and the hip joint tends to straighten. If you pull your feet underneath the chair so the knees bend more than 90 degrees, there is a tendency to lean forward. If your feet are right under your knees so that the knees are at about right angles, the hips also tend toward a more balanced angle, and that becomes a foundation for good posture.

4) Pull your feet underneath your chair and try to sit in what feels like good posture. You may notice that there is a little effort required. It does not feel quite right.

5) Straighten your knees and try to sit in what feels like good posture. You will likely feel that some effort is required to keep the hips right.

6) Now bend your knees at about a right angle. Many people find that they tend to sit up more easily.

Try A Healthy Back Lesson 1: Turning Left and Right

To do this lesson, make sure you are sitting in a firm chair that does not swivel. Start with your feet on the floor under your knees and sit toward the edge of the chair.

Article Summary

If you spend long hours sitting at a desk or computer, discomfort in the neck, shoulders, and back often develops gradually through habitual patterns of tension and movement.

This article explores a different approach. Rather than trying to force yourself into better posture or repeatedly treating symptoms, the Feldenkrais Method helps you become aware of how you sit, move, and organize yourself throughout the day.

By improving coordination and reducing unnecessary effort, many people discover:

• Easier sitting posture
• Less neck and shoulder tension
• Improved spinal mobility
• Greater comfort while working
• Reduced strain during everyday activities

The simple sitting experiments in this article demonstrate how the position of your feet, knees, and hips can influence posture automatically. Small changes in awareness often produce meaningful changes in comfort.

Frequently Asked Questions

Continue Exploring

If you enjoyed these sitting experiments, you’ll find a deeper exploration in A Healthy Back, a series of guided Awareness Through Movement® lessons designed to help reduce tension, improve posture, and make everyday activities feel easier and more comfortable.

→ Explore the A Healthy Back Audio Program