THE GRINCHES WHO CAUSE LOWER BACK PAIN

Sixty-year-old Irving Upright put in a four-hour stint at his computer trading stocks electronically. Finished, he stood up, grimaced and screamed. He said it felt like someone had smashed him in the lower back with a crowbar.

After many visits to the doctor and several MRIs, Irving discovered that he had sprung the fourth disk in his lower lumbar region.

The doctors were puzzled as to the cause of Irving's trouble. He had never played golf (sport's leading lower back destroyer), he had never lifted heavy object (baggage handling is the leading back-ruining profession) and he had never been injured.

But from childhood on, Irving's lower back had been under ceaseless attack by a virtual army of grinches.

Mother Upright had been Grinch Number One, yelling at little Irving to sit straight and not slouch.

Grinch Number Two was teacher Fiona Flambo, who had whacked him on the back of the head when she caught Irving slouching in her second grade class.

Grinch Number Three was eighth grade typing teacher Cora Kratchitt, who had penalized one of Irving's speed tests five words because he had been "sitting sloppily" while pounding away at his Underwood.

High school history teacher Boris Bohring became Grinch Nnumber Ffour when he admonished Irving to "sit with your back straight and try to look interested, whether you are or not."

During an Army basic training class, his NCO frequently bashed Irving on his helmet liner for not "sitting at attention."

Having been pre-conditioned to sit upright with good posture at all times, Irving was always the most posture-perfect student in his college classes. One of his professors remarked that "Irving was no slouch."

Out in the real world, his first supervisor told him to sit in front of a client "as if you are about to jump up, salute and shout yes sir!"

Even at home, Irving was so conditioned against slouching that he became the only one in his neighborhood who didn't own a Barcalounger. Sitting erectly at attention, he always stood out in the neighborhood crowd watching pro football games.

Even when alone in front of his computer, Irving sat with his back straight, at a perfect ninety-degree angle to his chair.

But sitting straight was what ruined Irving's back.

A recent study using positional MRIs that was conducted at Canada's University of Alberta Hospital found that the classic 90-degree seating position produces disk movement and discomfort. Instead, the study concluded that sitting back at a 135-degree angle puts far less strain on the back.

"Sitting in a sound anatomic position is essential, since the strain put on the spine and its associated ligaments over time can lead to pain, deformity and chronic illness," concluded Dr. Waseem Amir Bashir, who conducted the study.

In England, physiotherapists have long recommended against sitting in the classic vertical back position.

You see, Irving's body was not genetically designed for sitting. Cavemen who sat around soon starved to death. We, like them, are genetically wired for walking, roaming, climbing up and down rocks, and running in short bursts. But modern civilization has converted us into a nation of sitters. Worse yet, our teachers of modern civilized ways have pressured us to sit in the position that is most likely to cause lower back injury and pain.

Irving Upright may have been no slouch. But he would have been better off had he been one.

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