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How to Sit Properly for Typing

Nothing's easier than sitting. But when you sit at a given task, like typing, for hours at a time, even small imbalances can lead eventually to large and even debilitating injuries like repetitive stress injury (RSI). RSI is a catchall acronym referring to a variety of overuse syndromes, including tendonitis, carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS), adverse mechanical tension and thoracic outlet syndrome (TOS), which results from periods of holding your shoulders hunched or lifted. Prevent this panoply of overuse and misuse syndromes by always trying to maintain correct posture when you're typing.

Instructions

    • 1

      Keep both your feet flat on the floor.

    • 2

      Hold your head and neck as straight as you can but not uncomfortably so.

    • 3

      Sit back in your chair so that the small of your back presses against your chair's lumbar support, the small padded area protruding from the lower back of the chair. If the chair you use for typing doesn't have lumbar support, buy one that does.

    • 4

      Keep your upper arms and elbows close to your body, maintaining at least a 90-degree angle between the inside of each forearm and the inside of each upper-arm. A 90-degree angle is the same as a right angle. Preserving a sufficiently open angle between forearms and upper arms will prevent compression of the nerve at the elbow, according to Cornell University.

    • 5

      Hold your wrists as flat as possible when your hands are in position over your keyboard. Your wrists should not bend right or left, or up or down.

    • 6

      Stand up and take frequent breaks to stretch. One of the best ways of sitting properly is not sitting in any single position for long, unbroken periods of time.

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