Aside from those who come to my office with neck pain due to a trauma or car accident, I would estimate over 90% of my patients with neck pain develop that pain, at least in part, due to poor posture.

With more and more people spending an ever-greater amount of time sitting at desks, the number of people developing serious neck pain and dysfunction is also increasing.  A great deal of this pain could be avoided if people were to set up their desk space in a way that promotes and supports good posture, and if they were also adamant about maintaining these proper postural positions.

I find myself explaining appropriate postural positions and ergonomic desk set-ups on a weekly basis, so I decided to write an article and make a video about this issue.

Based on the video above, whether or not you have a desktop or a laptop, it is likely you will need an adjustable keyboard tray.  Here is a link to one of my favorites.  Note, you may be able to save money if the 17 inch version is big enough for you. You can also opt for the “standard tray” rather than this “adjustable tray” which essentially just gives you more adjustments for the mouse pad area (though if you have wrist or elbow issues, I would stick with the adjustable tray).

If you are using a laptop, here is a link to a wireless keyboard you can connect to it. If this one doesn’t suit your needs, just look around on Amazon for one that does. Here are general directions for connecting the keyboard to the laptop wirelessly.

If your chair is not adjustable in the ways described in the video, here is a link to the fully adjustable chair in the video.  With all that said, if you read this post on the dangers of sitting still and fully supported all day long, you may want to try this swiss ball chair. You can still attain very good posture with this type of chair… you just have to work at it throughout the day, which is likely much better for your health. All the angles of the body and placement of the computer/keyboard demonstrated in the video still apply.

If you have any questions about posture or neck pain that are not addressed in this article or video, please feel free to contact me at any time.

So Formula One is coming to the great city of Austin, Texas and there will be many people flying in from out of the country to see the races. These long flights can do a number on the body and especially the low back. There are a great number of things that can contribute to and/or cause low back pain, but today I’d like to focus on one that commonly affects people having to sit through long flights.

I rarely see a patient with low back pain whose “hip flexors” are not at least partially involved in their symptoms. So what are the hip flexors? And how can they cause back pain? I think this is most easily explained with a video …  Read more

Last Saturday, I had the privilege of working with the RunTex ATX TRAINING groups and providing some information about avoiding injuries as they work toward their inspiring goals. More specifically, I taught about hip muscles weaknesses that are predisposing factors to many back, hip, and knee injuries I treat in the clinic. We covered:

1. How specific Hip muscle weakness can lead to different types of injuries
2. How anyone can test themselves to see if they have these issues
3. Some simple exercises that can be done to strengthen the muscles and avoid injury Read more

So are you planning on “getting back in shape” in 2012? Like every January before, gyms, running trails, and “boot camps” around the country will see a flood of new people who haven’t exercised regularly since earlier the previous year. There are a number of things that keep people from staying active and sticking to their New Year’s resolutions. This is not an article about the psychological factors that people need to stay on the wagon. This is about how to keep injury from being your reason to quit exercising in 2012.

The good news is that many injuries can be avoided altogether if the predisposing factors are identified and resolved beforehand. For this reason I made a short video to help you do a quick “screen” your own movements to identify the potential for injury. Read more