How to Sit Pain-Free at Your Desk All Day

This article is a transcribed, edited summary of a video Bob and Brad recorded in March 2025. For the original video, go to https://youtu.be/wrYZlE6G-m8

Mike: Many of us experience neck, back, and shoulder pain while working at our desks.

Brad: And we're actually going to show you five simple, no-cost to low-cost methods to get rid of that pain.

Mike: And then we're going to show you why we invested in this Deluxe FlexiSpot E7 Plus high-low desk workstation. And I feel like I'm going to touch the ceiling.

Brad: Yeah, that's a mouthful, but we'll definitely show you this. It's a wonderful desk. Later on, it'll all be clear. Let's go back down, Mike.

Mike: First, we want to talk about the five cheapest steps to make your desk more pain-free.

Brad: Right, so here we have a nice desk. This is 29 inches high, which is about the standard for desks as you get them from the factory. I've got a chair, and the first thing you want to do is adjust or change your seat height if you can. Ideally, you want to have a 90-degree bend in your knees and your hips; you're like this. Now this chair is too high; my legs are swinging. If I reach forward and put them down, it puts stress and pressure on the back of my legs and the hamstrings. It reduces blood flow to your feet and can cause swelling. It's just not comfortable.

Brad: So if you have a desk or a chair like this where you can just drop it down, that's what you would do. But a lot of people don't have that. So what you'll want to do is get a cushion like this. You can either put a pillow down, possibly. I've had people who actually made a wooden one out of a piece of plywood. If you've got someone handy at home, whatever, put that down, and now it's comfortable, and you have the right weight-bearing for your legs at 90 degrees at the knees. I actually use this at home for this reason as well as in the wintertime. It's comfortable, and it's warm on my feet because I'm in the basement, because that's where I work.

Mike: I guess. That's step one. Step two, we want to look at your keyboard height because that is important if you're having any type of neck pain or carpal tunnel syndrome, issues like that. So you want to have your forearms in a nice relaxed position at your sides, roughly a 90-degree bend. And you want to have your forearms slightly supported.

Mike: Some desks may have a keyboard spot lower, which could work for some people. However, if your desk is at a fixed height, nonadjustable, and your chair has to be higher than you want, for what Brad just talked about, you're going to want to get it at the right height and then use something under your feet like Brad is currently, because that is important for your forearm support as well.

Brad: I think he's babbling.

Mike: A little bit, but you were babbling first. What's the next one?

Brad: We're going to talk about the height of the screen.

Mike: So this is too low right now?

Brad: Yeah, this is going to cause that kind of forward head posture. It's going to be very painful after an hour.

Mike: So you're going to want to raise it up and have a nice line of sight from your eyes to the key, to the keyboard, to the screen here.

Brad: Yeah.

Mike: Looking straight ahead. And Brad, you can show it, I guess, if you want.

Brad: Sure. If you draw a horizontal line, actually, this could go up a little bit more. If I did, I would put another book under there to really get it up high, actually. But the idea is you don't have to spend money to get the keyboard or to get the screen up to where it needs to be. A little higher than this for us would be good. However, this is a lot better than where we were.

Mike: Yeah, so you do make laptop stands, but obviously they cost money. You can just use books. But when you do this, you're going to need a separate keyboard and mouse because obviously you're not going to reach way up there.

Brad: Right, they're pretty cheap. You can simply buy a cordless mouse and keyboard for about $ 20- $ 25, and that's going to make a huge difference, because I know I worked on a laptop for about a year making videos a number of years ago, and I was always uncomfortable. This made a huge difference.

Mike: Now the next thing you want to do is make sure your forearms, as we talked about, are in an optimal position, but also supported. Because if they're depressed too much, it's going to put a lot of tension in your shoulders and your neck, possibly causing headaches. So if Brad's arms are down too low and not supported enough, he's going to put strain on his body. So what's the optimal setup there?

Brad: Right, so I want to have, if I put those down right now, the weight of my arms is pulling my shoulders down, putting stress on the muscles here, and whatever we want to do is let that go a little bit higher. If you have a desk that adjusts the arms, that's wonderful. Make a huge difference. This is much more comfortable than actually down lower. If you don't have adjustable armrests, don't fear; there are options at low cost. Go ahead, Mike.

Mike: So, if you have a standard chair, you can just take a pillow, put it at your side like this, and now look, I have an armrest that's higher up. So you may need some pillows. If you're at an office, sorry, you're going to look a little weird. If you're at home, it's fine.

Brad: But what about your other arm?

Mike: Well, you could do it with both arms. They're just kind of showing here. Yeah, don't do it with just one side. You can do it with both. But this is an option, and Bob was actually dealing with pain issues, and this is what he did.

Brad: Yeah, he was sold on it. He actually had stable arms, and he cut some foam off. Actually he cut some off of one of the blue pads. He got the knife out, cut it off, and he took some duct tape, taped it on there, no charge.

Mike: And the last tip we have is to actually do some stretching every hour.

Brad: Wait, there's one we missed.

Mike: What? Oh my goodness.

Brad: If you use cheaters or you have glasses, this is what I use: a dollar and a quarter at the dollar store nowadays. And when I read a book or use my cell phone, I use number two. However, a screen should be about this far away from you when you put your hand out.

Brad: And if I use the ones I use for reading a real hard copy book or my cell phone, it's completely unclear. And I have to get my head close before it clears up. So I went to the eye doctor, and he gave me my annual exam. He said, "They're good, but you need cheaters." He could give me some fancy glasses with whatever. And I said, "Nah, I'll just stick with these." Because I didn't want to spend any money.

Mike: Did he tell you to buy that color?

Brad: Well, at my house, the pretty colored ones are number one; all the black ones are number two. So I use the pretty ones when I'm at my computer, and I use these when I'm on my cell or reading a book. Now it's perfectly clear. I can see the dust specs perfectly. With the twos, everything is blurry. So make sure you use the right cheaters if you are a cheater with regard to your glasses.

Mike: I'm not a cheater. I'm a good person.

Brad: Well, we're not all that way.

Mike: Anyway, back to tip number five: actually taking a little stretching break because if you're working for hours at your computer, all of us still get into bad posture eventually. So some things you can do are just stand up and stretch like Brad is right now. Or you can even stay in your chair if you need to. You can work on doing some type of Ws, just going the opposite way. Maybe work on some chin tucking, bringing your chin, giving yourself a double chin like this, because oftentimes we're stuck in this forward hunch posture. So just go the opposite direction. What are you praying, or what are you doing there?

Brad: No, well, I might be, but I know I'm actually stretching my fingers out from this. So all these little things were demonstrating; you'll know that feels good when you go the opposite direction of the seated forward position. Do that at least every half hour. And the other thing is, try to take breaks. If you have to go to the bathroom, walk to the farther bathroom if it's an office. In my house, I go upstairs. And other things: if you have to use a printer, get up and walk to the printer. Making little excuses to get up and walk somewhere can really help your body out in the seated position for eight hours.

Mike: I like to make lots of excuses. I don't like to work too much.

Brad: Well, that's because you are only 35; we're not going to get into that. Let's go on to the next thing. Why did we have this fancy desk here at the beginning, with you raised up? And we want to talk about whether you want to spend some money, or you can get your boss to spend some money; these desks are really nice. I have two of them at home, and I'm really happy with them. One for my workstation. I've got one out in my garage. I actually use it for my shop workstation, so when I work with things there, it can go up and down. So let's talk about this desk, Mike.

Mike: So this is the FlexiSpot E7 Plus desk. I actually have a FlexiSpot desk and chair at home as well. And it has really changed the game for working and not having such neck pain. So that's why we like working with this company.

Brad: Right, they are really nice. Now, this is a new desk. The big advantage of high and low desks like that is you've got three different positions. You can work in your seated position, and you can bring it up and bring it up. If you have a stool, sit on a stool. So that would be a second position you could work at, take weight off of your butt or your legs when sitting on the stool. Or if you want to go to a full standing position, it's automatic; I can preset four different levels, and now I have it set for standing height, and now I can work at a standing position. And throughout the day, you're gonna be at one of the three. Some people just want the seated or the standing; whatever you want. You have three different options.

Mike: Yes, and this desk can hold up to 540 pounds statically and 440 pounds dynamically, meaning while moving up and down. Obviously, I don't weigh that much, but it moved me up and down pretty easily. I hope your computer doesn't weigh more than me, or I don't know what they have.

Brad: And it's very stable. This desk actually has four legs, and each leg has power pushing up on each side, making it very stable. We actually took a nickel, we're going to show you this, put it on, and did an up-and-down motion. The nickel stood on end, and I'll have you look at it right now.

Mike: And the keypad also actually comes with a USB charging port on the side here where Brad's pres

sing all the buttons.

Brad: Oh, I see. I see it, Mike.

Mike: So you can plug in your phone charger. Mine's constantly just sitting at my desk. I really like it.

Brad: Now, a lot of desks that don't have the four-leg power like that are unstable when you put the weight all on one side; they have a problem. This one, I'm 191 and a half pounds, and I'm sitting at an odd angle, and it laughs at it; it just goes up and down. And what about the safety with this?

Mike: It has a nice safety feature. So if you're going down and it bumps into something, or up and it bumps into something, let it go up once. Let it go.

Brad: It's going up.

Mike: Well, let go.

Brad: Well, let me; I have to put it to auto.

Mike: So watch: if it hits me, it stops, goes back down right there. Same works the same way if it's going down and you have something underneath you forgot about; bumps it'll stop and go back up.

Brad: Right.

Mike: As well.

Brad: Or if you're going down and your 3-year-old is under there to bump a head.

Mike: You put three-year-olds under there?

Brad: Well, they run around a lot.

Mike: Oh, okay.

Brad: He doesn't have any kids or grandkids.

Mike: I got a dog. She might bump her head. Anyway.

Brad: Anyways, it is a nice safety feature. 15-year warranty, 30-day risk-free return service. So you can't go wrong with that.

Mike: Yes, and make sure to look on the site because they have different leg color options as well as different finishes on top. Obviously, that'll change the price on it. You can also use the code YTE7P50 for $50 off.

Brad: Yeah, yeah. This chair is actually a FlexiSpot chair as well. Nice.

Mike: Yeah, that's my podcasting chair. Quit messing it up.

Brad: Sorry. All right, very good. Enough of the commercial. Really, either way, do it cheap, or if you want to go deluxe, good way to keep yourself pain-free.

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