While out Christmas shopping, I ran into my orthopedist while waiting in line. I usually thought doctors hated being asked about patient stuff out of the office, but he actually asked, “How’s the shoulder?”
It was a fair question. Despite being two years out from surgery and being mostly healed, I had gone to see him back in early November because I had been suffering from incredible upper-back pain radiating from the right shoulder. I told him, “The next a patient comes in with that sort of shoulder pain I reported, tell him to buy a new office chair.”
Omaha and my kids had gone in for a gorgeous gaming chair, the sort you’re supposed to be able to sit in for hours on end and just game. And it was just as comfortable as I could have possibly imagined. The chair had a tall back with these wings that seemed to bucket and embrace the whole upper body.
But I tend to slouch forward anyway, so over the two year I’d had that chair my shoulders had started to pull forward, straining the muscles and tendons that connect the shoulder to the ribcage in the back. My current job involves a lot of transitions between mouse and keyboard, and that small motion, constrained by the wings of the chair, had started to set up RSI in the unnaturally extended connective tissue. The pain had started to grow, and I was worried something was wrong with the shoulder again. After seeing the orthopedist, I did a small meditation on the nature of my pain and where it was most obvious, and the answer came to me fairly quickly: at the end of the workday, after being in that chair for several hours. And I also realized that as I approached the chair I was starting to dread sitting in it.
I pulled my old Herman Miller out of the storage room and swapped it with the gaming chair. Fighting with the chair. I became a little more diligent about doing my shoulder stretches and strengthening exercises, and after about two weeks the pain started to disappear.
No real lessons here other than what seemed like a great solution to my sitting forever turned out not to be. Worrying about real ergonomics, getting up regularly, and doing the exercise we’ve all been told to do, turns out to be the real solution.
It was a fair question. Despite being two years out from surgery and being mostly healed, I had gone to see him back in early November because I had been suffering from incredible upper-back pain radiating from the right shoulder. I told him, “The next a patient comes in with that sort of shoulder pain I reported, tell him to buy a new office chair.”
Omaha and my kids had gone in for a gorgeous gaming chair, the sort you’re supposed to be able to sit in for hours on end and just game. And it was just as comfortable as I could have possibly imagined. The chair had a tall back with these wings that seemed to bucket and embrace the whole upper body.
But I tend to slouch forward anyway, so over the two year I’d had that chair my shoulders had started to pull forward, straining the muscles and tendons that connect the shoulder to the ribcage in the back. My current job involves a lot of transitions between mouse and keyboard, and that small motion, constrained by the wings of the chair, had started to set up RSI in the unnaturally extended connective tissue. The pain had started to grow, and I was worried something was wrong with the shoulder again. After seeing the orthopedist, I did a small meditation on the nature of my pain and where it was most obvious, and the answer came to me fairly quickly: at the end of the workday, after being in that chair for several hours. And I also realized that as I approached the chair I was starting to dread sitting in it.
I pulled my old Herman Miller out of the storage room and swapped it with the gaming chair. Fighting with the chair. I became a little more diligent about doing my shoulder stretches and strengthening exercises, and after about two weeks the pain started to disappear.
No real lessons here other than what seemed like a great solution to my sitting forever turned out not to be. Worrying about real ergonomics, getting up regularly, and doing the exercise we’ve all been told to do, turns out to be the real solution.
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