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(soft piano music) This look familiar to you? Well, we'd like to show you some ways that you can prevent this type of painful problems associated with your work area. Working with the body in a neutral position always reduces the stress and strain on the muscles, the tendons and the skeletal system. And it'll also reduce your risk of developing what we call a musculoskeletal disorder, otherwise known as an MSD. The following things I'm about to tell you are really important when you're attempting to maintain neutral body postures while working at the computer work station. Remembering to watch your hands, wrists and forearms and make sure that they're straight. Make sure they're in line and roughly parallel to the floor. It's really going to be important that your head is level or bent slightly forward or forward facing and it feels balanced. Generally, it's gonna be in line with your whole torso. Remember to keep your shoulders relaxed and your upper arms are gonna hang fairly normally at the side of your body. It's important to keep your elbows close to the body and make sure they're bent at about 90 and 120 degrees and I know this sounds really technical but it's actually the way it's going to feel most natural when you're working at your work station. Your feet should be fully supported by either the floor itself or a foot rest and that foot rest should be adjustable so that your desk height is also gonna be about neutral with the way your legs lay underneath that desk. Now your back is also a very important part of this and it should be fully supported with the appropriate lumbar support when you're sitting vertical or even if you decide to lean back slightly. It's gonna be important to make sure your thighs and your hips are supported by a well padded seat and generally they're also gonna be parallel to the floor. Your knees are about the same height as your hips and with the feet, they should be slightly forward. Now regardless of how good your working posture is, working in the same posture or sitting still for any prolonged period of time, no matter what the reason, is never healthy. You should really change your working position frequently throughout the day and some of these ways I'm about ready to announce are some really nice ways to make those adjustments. You can make small adjustments to your chair or your backrest. Making sure to stretch your fingers and your hands, your arms, your torso, just stand up, walk around for a few minutes periodically. These four postures are just some examples of body posture changes that will provide neutral positioning for the body. The key is not to slouch but to keep the back well supported regardless of the posture. The upright sitting posture. The decline sitting posture. A standing posture. And the reclined sitting posture. Now, a chair that's well designed and appropriately adjusted is essential, there's just no two ways about it. And it's an extremely safe and productive way to make your computer station work for you. A good chair provides necessary support to the back, the legs, the buttocks and your arms while reducing exposures to awkward postures. Don't forget, especially contact stress which we find a lot of times in the elbows and there can sometimes even be forceful exertions because you're trying to adjust your chair but it won't adjust unless you jerk it or you stress your body in trying to get it into that proper position. The increased adjustability insures the better fit for the user and it provides adequate support in a variety of sitting postures. It also allows variability of sitting positions throughout the work day and this is particularly important if the chair is gonna have multiple users. Now remember the main idea is to avoid creating pain and developing musculoskeletal disorders.
Proper adjustment of office chairs and using good posture throughout the day can prevent some of the most common office related postural strain and stress injuries.