Chris Parsons The meandering musings of a coder

Hello.

As anyone who has worked on a production line will confirm, the main pain from long standing is in the hamstrings behind the knees. (For some reason there are never any comfy chairs on a factory floor. :) There is a simple trick to preventing hamstring pain: don't lock your knees. Normally, when we stand still we push our knees all the way back into the locked position because we feel more stable that way. However, you will find it very painful after three or four hours. If instead you keep your knees relaxed and unlocked, not only will you not fall over, but you won't get the hamstring pain either. I'm not suggesting knees bent as far as for skiing; keep them just-barely unlocked.

If you get lower back pain it can be greatly relieved by keeping your spine straight. To accomplish this requires first that you get a feel for how to rotate your pelvis. Try this: stand with your heels and back against a wall. If you put one hand behind you, you will find a gap at the level of the lower back between yourself and the wall. If you now try to 'tuck your bum under' by rotating your pelvis so that your buttocks move downwards and forwards while your pubic region moves upwards and backwards, you'll be able to close that gap up completely. (Once you know how to make the rotation you'll find it much easier to do away from the wall.) In this position your spine is much straighter, so your spinal bones will be standing directly on top of one another. Their supporting muscles won't have so much work to do, so they won't hurt so much. It's important not to put too much effort into it: try not to tighten up so much that you're straining your abdominal muscles or you'll just be moving the pain from one place to another, which would obviously be counterproductive.

By combining these two minor adjustments anybody can easily stand completely still for six, eight or even more hours. The most difficult thing about making the adjustment is changing your habit. You'll probably find that at first, as soon as your attention wanders to something else, you'll unconsciously slip back into the habitual, lock-kneed, bent-backed stance, and soon afterwards pain will begin. It takes a wee bit of practice to develop the new habit, but it's really well worth it.

HTH