In my expertise as a trainer of the Alexander Approach, studying tips on how to sit nicely is among the biggest challenges for brand new college students.
And some of the necessary. The general public who come to me for classes sit many extra hours a day than they stand, or do different actions. A lot of their sitting time includes specializing in issues exterior themselves – pc screens, the TV and so on – and infrequently they don’t seem to be paying any consideration to themselves, or to the floor that’s supporting them.
Making the scenario even worse is that these supporting surfaces generally present a really diffuse high quality of assist. Closely cushioned chairs and sofas, for instance, are likely to unfold the assist they provide over a large a part of your backside and as I’ll talk about beneath, this makes it fairly difficult to take a seat simply upright.
“Sitting is the brand new smoking” so the brand new fashionable expression goes, and for good motive.
In some methods, it’s slightly ironic that this needs to be the case. Check out the image above. The 2 bones supporting the higher physique within the heart of the image are the sit bones.* They’re fairly stable and are completely designed to bear your weight and to rock simply forwards and backwards, transfer sideways shifting your weight back and forth and so on. Such a easy base ought to permit extra environment friendly and simple assist than standing, the place your weight is distributed throughout two ft which have way more advanced buildings.
The triangular bone on the proper backside above (within the heart of the picture beneath) is your sacrum and is way more delicate and ill-equipped to bear any vital quantity of weight. And but, many individuals sit in a method that locations an excessive amount of weight on their sacrum, thereby creating pointless pressure and discomfort.
(The two footage on this weblog had been taken by me of my educating skeleton. I attempted to discover a good skilled illustration exhibiting the burden being borne by the sit bones however was unable to seek out one I might use. Most confirmed weight being borne by the sacrum, or by the legs!)
If you happen to’d like to take a seat with better ease, finding your sit bones is a wonderful first step.
Right here’s tips on how to do it: Discover a chair or stool with a flat picket floor and sit on it. Then, put your arms beneath your backside and see for those who can really feel your sit bones – two bony bits close to the middle – and ask your self in case your weight is definitely on them or, as is commonly the case, additional again.
In case your weight will not be straight in your sit bones, rotate your pelvis a bit forwards and backwards till you possibly can really feel together with your arms that your weight is coming via your sit bones. Then take your arms out and see for those who can sense these bones straight. It might be simpler to do that for those who sit on the entrance a part of the chair.
Chances are you’ll must experiment a bit, however when you develop the flexibility to sense your sit bones, and what occurs whenever you transfer ahead and backward, then experiment with transferring back and forth in order that your weight comes down extra on the one bone than the opposite. Discover that having your weight transferred to the chair via your sit bones m
akes it a lot simpler so that you can transfer your torso round.
I prefer to experiment with doing determine eights round my sit bones as method of encouraging my thoughts to note what occurs at my assist factors.
None of that is prone to be doable for those who’re sitting on a smooth floor with quite a lot of give. As a result of the assist you obtain is so diffuse, it’s tough to sense simply the place it’s utilized, and your sit bones are doubtless taking solely a small a part of it.
Exploring your sitting base in these varieties of the way can go a great distance in direction of making your time in a chair simpler and more healthy.
I’d love to listen to your experiences with this little bit of self-discovery on Fb or beneath.
*Technically, your ischial tuberosities.
Photographs © Robert Rickover, 2018. Could also be used with express permission.