* Be careful of opinions and chiropractors, if you are in actual pain get a CT Scan or MRI.

* I stand all day at work, maybe I sit for 30 minutes here and there.

* One of the best things you can do for your back is walk. Walking helps align your posture.

* Get a good chair, not necessary an expensive one, you want a chair which supports your back and has your legs supporting some of your weight.

* Doing minimal yoga or stretching is key even if it's for 5 minutes, do not do yoga that stresses your back or twists anything! I do 5 minuets of exercise 3 times a day.

* Strengthen your core muscles and your glutes. You don't need a 6 pack but it certainly helps.

* Engage your abductors often, you can engage some of them any-time you think about them (sort of like holding back when you have to urinate).

* Try to feel your muscles (meditation can help here), you will often notice they are tense or perhaps you are just tense in general. Try and relax, breath and generally loosen up. Getting a massage can also help and thermotherapy is a godsend.

This is really good advice. I regularly see an active release therapist (I'm an avid climber, and no longer a spring chicken, so I get some aches and pains), and he has given me a small selection of exercises to do during the day at work to keep my abductors engaged. It's made a huge difference.

My "office" exercises are pretty simple. First, I stand up, reach down and touch my toes (or, as far down as you can reach), then straighten up slowly, focusing on really using my hamstrings and glutes. Second, I cross my legs while sitting on a chair, then pull my knee into my chest for a few seconds. Repeat on the other side.

I do agree with the child's response, though--if you can find a good therapist, they can point you in the proper direction and spot muscle imbalances. Years of focusing on just my upper body (for rock climbing) left my legs pretty unbalanced. I've been working hard to fix that.

What I do is pigeon pose, cat pose, bird dog, press-up back extensions, and several on my back where I cross my knee over my chest. I do not do any planking or twisting.

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/sit-better-live-better-excer...

http://www.allthingsgym.com/kelly-starrett-on-posture/

I would highly recommend his book "Becoming a Supple Leopard" to all lifters and anyone generally interested in improving their posture.

I sit like a sack of potatoes with depression at my desk, skewed at an angle wedged into a corner, so I'm always at a ~30 degree angle to my keyboard and monitor. Oh, and I should be wearing glasses but I don't, so I hunch over my laptop like a jealous gorilla with a mean squint. I make sure that my battered old cheap piece of shit desk chair is at all times wobbling, and regularly pick at the padding for that authentic bolty "I'm sitting on a goddamned plank" feel.

This genius move has left me with a twisted spine and a neck that likes to seize up in spectacular fashion from time to time.

So, basically, do the exact opposite to what I do. It's pretty amazing how quickly "temporary" "discomfort" turns into long-term physical distress.

It gives you a set of targeted exercises depending on your self-diagnosis. His secret weapon is the 'Supine Groin Stretch', shown here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXYQWFkVTDI. I recommend trying it at least once. The stretch opened my eyes to how my body should and could feel.

After many years of sitting, the hip muscles tighten, atrophy, and lose their ability to rotate the hip. The hip stays tight (flexed) and the thigh muscles (and others) end up taking over the role of keeping your body upright.

This works, but stresses these muscles, since they weren't designed for it. This stretch (or release) convinces the thigh to 'let go' of your hip, allowing it to rotate. This has positive effects all the way up your body, especially in the load-bearing joints: ankles, knees, hips, shoulders.

In severe cases, you might need to wait a very long time for this release. My right thigh takes about 40 minutes to release completely. I use the flexing thigh test he describes in the video to know when it's done.

I've been doing it every morning for a week now and can sit upright without pain for the whole day, something I've never been able to do before. I'm looking forward to continued progress!

Edit: More info here: http://www.oregonexercisetherapy.com/blog/egoscue-supine-gro...

I'm always skeptical about stuff like this, when it's a person's self-developed method, and you can "Buy The Book!" and there's strategically placed testimonials, and it has it's own useless terminology like "e-cise" and you can get lessons from a certified center. It all just seem too sales-y to me.

But you seem to be a real person, and it worked for you :) I guess I'll have to try for myself.

And as for your edit: In the UK I believe there is a duty on employers to "survey" your desk and workstation setup to ensure it is configured properly. This normally consists of a 10 minute online course telling you what height to have your monitors etc.

These are easy actions that I think helped me:

-Using a standing desk is probably ideal, but sitting with good alignment is better than bad. I put reams of paper under my monitor to raise it up and I really like this chair (often on sale for under $100): http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/604924/WorkPro-1000-Se... This chair is rated at 8+ hrs/day, and locks to support a range of spinal angles such as this "optimal slouch": http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6187080.stm

-Be careful with compound weightlifting like squats, kettlebells, deadlifts etc. Using bad form (curved back) will increase the force on the edges of your spinal disks by a factor of 2-3. Trying to lift too much weight compounds this. Both lead to injury.

-Make flexibility a priority over cardio or strength. Do back/hamstring stretches a few times a day until you reach a good level of mobility. I've had the "upward facing dog" yoga pose recommended among others. The therapist I saw also recommended doing "neural glide stretching" where you push for a few seconds, release slightly, then repeat.

1. Try your best to move more during the day. Standing desks can help, but standing for 6-8 hours is probably just as bad as sitting. Do walking meetings if possible, and take frequent breaks. sSometimes I'll take conference calls with a headset and stretch in my office. Use a Pomodoro app to remind yourself to stretch or change position every 25 minutes or so.

2. Lots of people who sit for most of the day have lumbar lordosis or weak hip flexors (I did). To check if you have this problem, stand to the side in front of a mirror. Does it look like your butt sticks out and your lower spine curves in? (See here: http://stronglifts.com/lordosis-why-it-causes-lower-back-pai...). The other way you can test this is attempt to do a "hollow rock" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jh4-uLTL4v4). Is that hard/impossible? You probably have lumbar lordosis, weak hip flexors, weak abs or all of the above.

This can be hard to fix, but not impossible. It's doing to take a few months, but it's totally worth it. The way I did it was to just do Crossfit. It's really hard to do this on your own and keep your motivation up and Crossfit solves that problem. Most Crossfit exercises require you to have an "explosive" hip thrust which will strengthen and stretch your core.

If you don't want to do Crossfit, kettle bells seem to be the exercises in Crossfit that stretch and strengthen the hip flexors most for me. Try kettle bell swings, kettle bell sumo deadlifts, and kettle bell cleans.

Actually get up to use a whiteboard rather than staying at your desk, drink smaller freshly-made cups of tea/coffee, get up and talk with coworkers in person rather than having a team meeting over IM, etc. – none of that's a replacement for the more serious measures but it's surprisingly better than doing nothing and you can roll it into your life now.

Your employer absolutely should support this. Depending on where you live there are various levels of legal requirement but even without that many places will provide surprising amounts of support. It's a cheap investment for them – even a top-of-the-line chair, standing desk, etc. will cost far less than lost work, medical care, or just the cost of hiring a recruiter if you jump ship for a place which takes better care of staff.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0979303605/

I found it to be immensely helpful, and my posture is now dramatically improved. The suggestions are clear and actionable. I'd try to explain them here, but honestly the book will do it way better.

I think that the key for me is to check in with my muscles. When my posture isn't right, I can feel it because the muscles on one side or another (or forward and backwards) of my spine or neck are slightly tense.

I've found that not everyone seems to be able to monitor whether a muscle is engaged or not, but if you can, that's a tell-tale sign that your posture isn't neutral. I learned this technique from many years of karate, honestly no idea if it's transferrable if you don't do any physical activity. I feel like it should be possible, but maybe 10% of people I've described it to can feel it.

Other thing that I know for sure is that physical activity will repair a lot of the damage you can do to your body. When I don't do karate for more than about three weeks, my lower back starts hurting (old injury). Regularly not just stretching it out, but working the muscles in those areas by rotating at the hips (in my case with karate punches) smoothly and repeatedly seems to get a lot of blood flow to the affected area, work out deep muscle spasms that are pulling my spine out of alignment, and basically smooths out the action of the joints in the spine. I'm not sure biking or running would help, but I bet swimming would. Needs to be a fairly full body exercise with rotation action around the axis of your spine I think... at least for lower back.

One thing I have found is that wall angels are surprisingly useful, even though they seem like a trivial exercise. When I first started paying attention to my posture, they were borderline painful, and I can still tell if I've been doing well or not based on how stiff I feel while doing them.

The best advice I've ever gotten was the Alexander Technique, which is used mainly by actors and singers. It's generally taught through 1-1 lessons, but there are many books on it.

A good starter is this book that actually teaches the basics of it, rather than just talking about it:

http://www.amazon.com/Guided-Lessons-Students-Alexander-Tech...

Practicing the "semi-supine position" has basically saved my lower back.

You are forced to adopt good posture if you want to do them properly and with any heavy weight. You'll carry that posture with you into your daily activities.

Have since quit, posture has regressed.

Time to get back in there!

Working out most days helps too.

Mild, non-intrusive consciousness of posture is important.

As an employer I try to get my employees to try Taoist Tai Chi ;), offer them access to massage and whatever chair they want (trying a kneeling chair atm) and whatever can help their back/general health issues.

I have a simple apple reminder set twice daily to 'check your posture' -- it pops up on me at 11am and 3pm (times I'm most likely to have been sitting for a while) and reminds me to get up and walk around, adjust my sitting position, or switch to standing.

So far so good!

I should probably do more.

[1]http://gizmodo.com/ikea-sit-stand-desk-review-i-cant-believe...

[1]http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/S49022524/ [2]http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/S69054632/#/S4906...

The yoga mountain pose any time I am standing and remember about it. I'm not into yoga, but this one "pose" is worth learning/practicing.

[1] https://youtu.be/LT_dFRnmdGs

A: Absolutely nothing.