The other part of my solution was to get a standing desk for the days that I work from home. I don’t always stand when I work at it, but I do tend to have it at height that’s a bit higher than my desk in the office is. At my home desk I sit on a stool that has no backrest and is, by design, unstable, which makes me use my core. The upright moves by up to about 10 degrees in any direction. I’m sure this all helps me avoid the hunched forward position that is common when working at a laptop.
In my opinion, most office chairs, including ones that claim to be ergonomic aren’t fit for purpose. If you spend enough time in one, you will end up with postural problems
Don’t call it lazy. Even with motivation and good guidance, it takes many months or even years to get to where you can play with ease and comfort. Practice and pay attention to details. Do some stretching when you get sore.
I would certainly agree about the couch/chair dichotomy! Currently trying out a large (ish) footstool. Basically move and listen to your body instead of ignoring it.
Not one of them exactly but very much the same idea - I can play guitar on it but usually I don’t. Maybe I’ll upload my next video of me playing on it for a laugh, might give anyone who watches motion sickness
Even if you try to follow the sort of advice that corporate HR divisions dish out you’d likely end up in the same place, just it takes a bit longer - from their point of view, hopefully long enough that you can’t sue them for giving you long term health problems!
I have lower back issues too, and can fully empathise
This, I reckon by far, is the JG lesson that pushed me the furthest along my (beginner) guitar journey thus far. Before that, I couldn’t practice for any more than ~30 minutes without being in pain. Not only could I not practice much, the physical discomfort (even before it becomes pain) just kills whatever enjoyment there is coming out of the guitar. Anyway, I really hope you can find a solution that works for you.
The other thing I do is to alternate between standing and sitting. I try to do all my song practice standing, which I insert into my practice routine between blocks of sitting down doing other technical practice / scales / learning a new riff / etc. This really helps massively.
I’ll try this, I’m having back pain and I’m worried. Recently I’ve been playing on my sofa and not on my bed (which I think also gives me bad posture).
Sofas are made for slouching. Slouching is hard in the back. A good chair that promotes good posture is essential for guitar playing as well as work/computer stations. Google desk ergonomics and apply to your guitar playing. Some classical guitar websites also have great information on guitar ergonomics.
If you need to sit on a soft chair, couch or bed to play, sit at the edge with your feet flat in the floor so you can have decent posture.
I think I’m almost there, I’m trying to get no back pain when playing. I get better results when I’m sitting straight, legs at about 90° degree (I don’t know if sofa, bed or any other accent (or it’s called sit?) makes difference). I think I’ll need the strap to get the guitar higher with the neck a little bit pointing up and off the body of course.
