In this article, we will discuss sitting time and back pain.
Are you sitting with a comfortable posture?
In today's world where we have many opportunities to sit, sitting is considered to be a factor that causes back pain.Studies have shown that if you sit like this, you may get back pain in 0 minutes. Here is a study that investigates this question.
Contents of the study
The study involved 26 participants (13 men and 13 women) aged 20-35.
The measurements were taken using algometry to examine the pain threshold of pressure applied between the spinous processes of the lumbar spine L1-L5.
Pressure algometer measurements were taken in the supine position before and after participants were instructed to sit in a fully flexed position for up to 15 minutes or until discomfort was felt in the lower back.The Wilcoxon signed rank test was used to analyze the pre- and post-test condition values, and the Mann-Whitney U test was used to investigate potential gender differences.
The results showed that fully flexed lumbar sitting for up to 15 minutes caused temporary discomfort, but 62% of the participants experienced lumbar discomfort.
For all pain pressure threshold locations tested, there was a significant difference in the study population with moderate to greatly reduced pressure pain thresholds after exposure to prolonged flexed sitting (P <0.01).
No significant differences were found in the gender comparison.
Author's Conclusion
Results showed that exposure to a fully flexed lumbar seated position for up to 15 minutes caused temporary discomfort in the lower back of young healthy adults with no history of LBP and a significant decrease in lumbar interspinous process pressure pain threshold. No gender differences were observed.
Petersson M, Abbott A. Lumbar interspinous pressure pain threshold values for healthy young men and women and the effect of prolonged fully flexed lumbar World J Orthop. 2020;11(3):158-166. published 2020 Mar 18. doi:10.5312/wjo.v11.i3.158
Conclusion
In the experiment, the tenderness to the spinous processes of the lumbar spine increased depending on the sitting posture, regardless of whether there was a history of low back pain or not.
As a sitting posture
The experiment was conducted under the following conditions.
This is an image.
It is unclear whether this posture really causes lumbago, but it is worth noting that the tender spot is associated with risk factors.
The point is that the lumbar spine must be in a fully flexed position, and it may be that similar results can be obtained if it is flexed in other situations.
