Good habit formation can't hurt, but don't neglect the fundamentals. The thing that's pulling your shoulders forward is not some mental weakness on your part, it's an imbalance in muscle tightness and weakness, like a tent pole with regular guy wires on one side and yarn on the other. You need exercises to strengthen the lower traps like floor Y's and chest supported dumbbell row, plus face pulls and scapular wall slide.
I've made this for myself to help me slouch less, so I thought it might be useful to others. It uses face-api.js to get the user's face, and then tries to guess when you're slouching by capturing the state when you are sitting upright, and then using position and face size in relation to the captured state. All processing is done client side and no data is being sent anywhere.
Daily Mysore yoga and a standing desk will also completely fix posture without needing constant reminders or cyborg devices, but require more effort. There are other great benefits though, such as weight loss, core strength, and pain reduction.
One needs to be smart with transitioning to standing while working. Just going into it blind isn’t smart. Deskbound by Kelly Starett has a good protocol for transitioning.
How about for people with fallen arches? No length "transition period" can be expected to work out, if standing for hours just isn't in the cards for you, physiologically.
My feet are fairly flat and doing basic deadlifts helped move my posture from knees rolling in, toes gripping the floor to my feet resting along the edges of the foot, up to the ball of the foot and my knees straightening out. It helps the lower back and the strain in neck muscles too.
Standing desks are a significant change. I got a small amount of swollen ankles the first day of standing for hours. But it works now.
It was just an idea floating around the circles I used to visit. I knew it improved posture so I tried it. I was also having lower back issues and general excessive computer use problems. Works well enough.
Deadlifts miss the muscles in the shoulder that tighten up from too much mouse + kb. I haven't found an excersize for that, which is as effective as deadlifts. Pushing your arms back in a door frame, holding your elbows above shoulder height, helps roll back each shoulder and stretch a tight muscle that goes from the top of your shoulder to the front of your chest that gets tight when hunched over a kb. That works in the short term, but it doesn't give the effective feeling of strengthening those muscles in such a way that the problem recurs much more slowly, like deadlifts do for your legs/back/neck.
I've tried hanging from a pullup bar and that certainly helps reset the shoulders/neck/head tension, but it's not a fix in the same way gaining strength is a fix.
One of the bullpens at my new job pitched in and got a pull-up stand! It brings people to visit and makes the place feel like we own it a little. That's a good selling point that it causes you to rotate your shoulder blades back and up. Hanging leg lifts can also be done and are also a much more effective ab exercise than situps (since it only takes 10 reps to get tired, and you can bring your knees closer or farther away to adjust the resistance).
I'm a little confused by this brief post. Are they suggesting somehow incorporating the pull-up bar into your workstation setup or just installing one nearby and doing pull-ups periodically during breaks?
I've found strength training with bodyweight exercises to help immensely with both. I'm following the "recommended routine" from the /r/bodyweightfitness subreddit. [1]
On hamstring tightness: often when muscles are tight, it's due to a strength imbalance. Runners tend to get tight hamstrings because they work their quads a lot and the hamstrings don't keep up. So while it's a bit of an oversimplification to say that if certain muscles are chronically tight, you can fix that just by making them stronger, it's not too far off. For me it was really that simple: strengthening my hamstrings with hip hinges [2] made them noticeably less tight within about a month.
For posture it's basically the same idea. I always thought posture was like a force of will/discipline/habit thing until I finally felt how much easier it is to have that "discipline" after moderately strengthening my back, chest, core, and legs. Standing or sitting up straight is actually a lot of work for our bodies. And if it's basically the hardest thing you regularly subject the relevant muscles to, it's not too surprising that they will get tired out quickly. But if you start doing things that are much harder for each muscle group (like planks, push ups, rows, squats, hinges, etc.), then simply holding yourself up straight gets much easier.
Started up my own version of this ~10 seconds before I saw this story. It's amazing how a simple program ("yell at the user if face position < threshold") is enough to quickly train some better habits.
Works just fine in FF, but also a bit of a hog on resources? I think it'd be better if it maybe just started/stopped capturing every N minutes or even just used photos instead of video? Presumably, you can do the same analysis with just a photo?
I know it takes a lot you can increase the interval to reduce it. Good idea though, although starting and stopping of the camera can maybe be buggy/suspicious behavior. I'll definitely add it as an option.
This happened for me at first, but some combination of removing the tape from my camera and refreshing the screen, then hitting "Start Camera", caused the other button to become usable. Works well!
I don't see any errors. It also freezes up when I click to stop capturing and I have to close the tab. I tried in Incognito in case an extension was causing problems, but had same issue.
https://1h6wllf3f4qfut1832zlo21e-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-... (upper cross syndrome diagram)
https://www.t-nation.com/training/top-priority-for-lower-tra... (prone Y)
https://www.menshealth.com/fitness/a19521507/chest-supported... (chest supported dumbbell row)
https://www.t-nation.com/training/whats-your-weak-link (scapular wall slide)
The code is open sourced and can be seen here https://github.com/lnenad/slouch-stoppah
Standing desks are a significant change. I got a small amount of swollen ankles the first day of standing for hours. But it works now.
Deadlifts miss the muscles in the shoulder that tighten up from too much mouse + kb. I haven't found an excersize for that, which is as effective as deadlifts. Pushing your arms back in a door frame, holding your elbows above shoulder height, helps roll back each shoulder and stretch a tight muscle that goes from the top of your shoulder to the front of your chest that gets tight when hunched over a kb. That works in the short term, but it doesn't give the effective feeling of strengthening those muscles in such a way that the problem recurs much more slowly, like deadlifts do for your legs/back/neck.
I've tried hanging from a pullup bar and that certainly helps reset the shoulders/neck/head tension, but it's not a fix in the same way gaining strength is a fix.
Uhhh....
I can personally recommend Upright Pose, https://www.uprightpose.com/en-try/
On hamstring tightness: often when muscles are tight, it's due to a strength imbalance. Runners tend to get tight hamstrings because they work their quads a lot and the hamstrings don't keep up. So while it's a bit of an oversimplification to say that if certain muscles are chronically tight, you can fix that just by making them stronger, it's not too far off. For me it was really that simple: strengthening my hamstrings with hip hinges [2] made them noticeably less tight within about a month.
For posture it's basically the same idea. I always thought posture was like a force of will/discipline/habit thing until I finally felt how much easier it is to have that "discipline" after moderately strengthening my back, chest, core, and legs. Standing or sitting up straight is actually a lot of work for our bodies. And if it's basically the hardest thing you regularly subject the relevant muscles to, it's not too surprising that they will get tired out quickly. But if you start doing things that are much harder for each muscle group (like planks, push ups, rows, squats, hinges, etc.), then simply holding yourself up straight gets much easier.
1 - https://www.reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/
2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11I-ZWWNGDI
'http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6187080.stm