Can You Develop A Hunchback At Your Job?

Well....John had good posture when he first started his job at the food processing plant. But as the weeks went on he knew that he had to do something to improve his posture.

His job was to watch the corn coming in on the conveyor belt and pick out the ones that were full of smut. These had to be discarded so that consumers didn’t eat them.

John realized that it was a pretty important job, and saw his work as a way to help mankind.

Sure, it wasn’t like being a humanitarian who hands out grants and money to different organizations and associations, but nevertheless, he was playing a big part in the health and safety of those who ate corn.

What Contributes To Poor Posture?

When he first started his job, he realized he felt horrible after a full day of work. After doing some online research, he attributed this to:

1. Standing on a concrete floor all day long
2. Inappropriate shoes to support his feet
3. Reaching over to pick the corn off the belt repeatedly
4. Looking down constantly
5. Hunching over during the job

Yet, his supervisors never seemed to notice that his posture was going from good to poor. They never once said, “Fred, stand up straight!” Nor did they send him to an inhouse training on how to improve posture.

This actually is quite common. It’s simply because supervisors don’t know how to improve posture, so they don’t look for employees that are in need of it.

John  put in his hours at the plant and when the corn season was in full harvest, he worked the necessary overtime hours to help out. But his desire to help humans exceeded his body’s ability to recover from the job.

Posture Changes Are Evident To Others

John’s posture started to decline rapidly. He looked around at work. It seemed that everyone had a hunchback of some sort; the old timers had the worst and the newest employees had the beginning signs, which were:

• forward head
• locked knees
• exaggerated curve at the back of the neck
• tightness around the clavicle
• soreness in upper back and neck muscles
• His wife started nagging him more often about his stooped position. Although he tried to stand up straight at times, it wasn’t long before his body fell back into the hunched position.

Even on weekends, he felt like he was still picking corn off the belt! His body took on the corn picking posture!

You don’t have to be in a corn picking job to start developing a hunchback. You could be sitting at a desk at work and start developing one.

What To Do At Work To Correct Your Posture

When sitting at your desk, do these things to correct your posture:

1. Move your tailbone as far back as you can. This resets the base you are sitting on.

2.Use a lumbar support pillow on your chair. As the name implies, the pillow will support your low back.
3. Try to get a chair with armrests so you don’t have to physically hold your arms up.

4. Have someone look at your position from the side and make sure that you aren’t looking up at the computer screen with your chin up. This flattens the cervical curve in the neck and contributes to the degeneration.

5. Have someone check your shoulder position every hour on the hour for three days. This may sound like a lot, but you will need constant reminders of your posture if you want to improve your posture.

It’s very important to start correcting your posture as soon as you detect that it is becoming a problem. The longer you wait, the longer it will take you to correct it.

What to Do At Work to Correct Your Standing Posture

If you have a job like John, then you will take other measures to improve your posture:

When standing at your job, do these things to correct your posture:

1. You must purchase a pair of shoes that are solid and made for standing for long hours at a time.

2. Ask the management if they can purchase a specific type of padding that absorbs the shock of standing for long hours. This helps immensely. Standing on concrete is not good!

3. For every half hour you are bent over in the corn picking posture, do a set of exercises where you squeeze your shoulder blades together and hold them in that position for 5 seconds. You must oppose the muscles that are being used in the corn picking position.

4. Stretch your arms backwards as often as possible.

5. Do neck rolls when you first start the job and then at least once an hour.

John went far beyond the call of duty at work. His wife enrolled him in a yoga class which also helped improve his posture, even though he only attended on weekends. He then passed along the yoga stretches to his fellow workers during lunchtime.

And all of them benefited.

But John still needed more help with his hunchback. He had to do specific exercises to improve posture.