Journal of Electromyography and Kinesiology 23 (2013) 362368

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Journal of Electromyography and Kinesiology

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jelekin

Lumbar posture and muscular activity while sitting during ofce work
Falk Mrl a,, Ingo Bradl b,c
a

Forschungsgesellschaft fr angewandte Systemsicherheit und Arbeitsmedizin mbH, Dubliner Strae 12, 99091 Erfurt, Germany
German Social Accident Insurance Institution for the Foodstuffs and Catering Industry, Department of Prevention, Biomechanics, Dubliner Strae 12, 99091 Erfurt, Germany
c
University Hospital Jena, Clinic for Trauma-, Hand- and Reconstructive Surgery, Division for Motor Research, Pathophysiology and Biomechanics, 07740 Jena, Germany
b

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 20 June 2012
Received in revised form 11 September 2012
Accepted 2 October 2012

Keywords:
Lumbar spine
Long term EMG
Sitting
Ofce work
Lordosis
Lumbar posture

a b s t r a c t
Purpose: Field study, cross-sectional study to measure the posture and sEMG of the lumbar spine during
ofce work for a better understanding of the lumbar spine within such conditions.
Scope: There is high incidence of low back pain in ofce workers. Currently there is little information
about lumbar posture and the activity of lumbar muscles during extended ofce work.
Methods: Thirteen volunteers were examined for around 2 h of their normal ofce work. Typical tasks
were documented and synchronised to a portable long term measuring device for sEMG and posture
examination. The correlation of lumbar spine posture and sEMG was tested statistically.
Results: The majority of time spent in ofce work was sedentary (82%). Only 5% of the measured time was
undertaken in erect body position (standing or walking). The sEMG of the lumbar muscles under investigation was task dependent. A strong relation to lumbar spine posture was found within each task. The
more the lumbar spine was exed, the less there was activation of lumbar muscles (P < .01). Periods of
very low or no activation of lumbar muscles accounted for about 30% of relaxed sitting postures.
Conclusion: Because of very low activation of lumbar muscles while sitting, the load is transmitted by
passive structures like ligaments and intervertebral discs. Due to the viscoelasticity of passive structures
and low activation of lumbar muscles, the lumbar spine may incline into de-conditioning. This may be a
reason for low back pain.
2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Ofce work and sitting at a desk for longer periods is common
for people in western civilisation. Orthopaedists and physical therapists assume de-conditioning of the trunk and lumbar spine
structures due to long-term sitting without longer active periods
of standing, walking or running. This de-conditioning may be a reason for low back pain and accelerated degeneration of lumbar
spine structures. Looking at the incidence of low back pain and
the inability to work because of low back pain in ofce workers
conrms this assumption (Burdorf et al., 1993; Hemingway et al.,
1997; Janwantanakul et al., 2008; Juul-Kristensen and Jensen,
2005; Juul-Kristensen et al., 2004; Riihimki et al., 1989, 1994;
Spyropoulos et al., 2007; Trner et al., 1991; Videman and Battie,
1999). In summary, there is high prevalence of low back pain in ofce workers with the risk of getting low back pain comparable to
more demanding work. However, there is currently little information available about the behaviour of the lumbar spine over long
periods because of a lack of adequate measurement devices. In laboratory settings, no coherence of lumbar exion angle and lumbar
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: falk.moerl@apz-erfurt.de (F. Mrl).
1050-6411/$ - see front matter 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jelekin.2012.10.002

muscle activity was found (OSullivan et al., 2006; Callaghan and

Dunk, 2002). One study documents different movement patterns
of the lumbar spine during sitting for low back pain developers
and asymptomatic subjects (Dunk and Callaghan, 2010). Only
one eld study measured global angles of trunk and thighs and correlated these posture measurements to the activation of lumbar
muscles (Mork and Westgaard, 2009). They did not show clear correlations (.44 < r < .80) because the measurements used for trunk
posture are not precise enough.
The load on lumbar discs while sitting is not to be underestimated and is greater than in erect positions like standing or reclined (Nachemson, 1966). Newer studies support this data on
the whole (Wilke et al., 2001). Further, the exionrelaxation phenomenon is present in exed postures of the trunk, so there is no
active muscular support or stabilisation while resting in such positions (Schultz et al., 1985; Sihvonen et al., 1988). This means activation of the lumbar muscles is not required in such body positions
and it would seem that this is comparable to the situation in sedentary work. Most studies on the exionrelaxation phenomenon
only show global angles for trunk inclination. For the lumbar spine,
however, it is assumed that the curvature (lordosis, at or kyphosis) is the main impacting factor on activating the lumbar muscles.
There have been no studies providing this information as yet.

F. Mrl, I. Bradl / Journal of Electromyography and Kinesiology 23 (2013) 362368

Low back pain patients show atrophy of lumbar muscles (Hadar

et al., 1983; Cooper et al., 1992; Hides et al., 1994; Danneels et al.,
2000; Barker et al., 2004; de-las Peas et al., 2008). Since physical
inactivity and a lack of activation of muscles are reasons for atrophy (Hayashi et al., 1992; Salminen et al., 1993; Bloomeld,
1997; Hodges et al., 2006; Hides et al., 2007; Hyun et al., 2007;
Belavy et al., 2008) de-conditioning or atrophy of lumbar muscles
can be assumed due to long periods of sedentary work without
active leisure.
Physical changes are not only present in the muscles. Passive
structures like ligaments or intervertebral discs are characterised
by viscoelasticity. This means that (also low) cyclic but long-lasting
loading leads to the creep of discs or ligaments (Solomonow et al.,
1998; Adams and Dolan, 1996). The main function of passive structures, which is to guide the kinematics of a joint, decreases because
of the decrease in stiffness (Solomonow et al., 1998; Adams and
Dolan, 1996). Moreover, ligaments have neural connections to
muscles and are mechanical receptors for critical situations
(Solomonow et al., 1987; Johansson et al., 1991). Due to the creep
of the passive structures, the mechanism that triggers reexes decreases and nally disappears (Solomonow et al., 1999, 2003). It
should be noted that recovery of ligaments takes more than 8 h
of total rest (Gedalia et al., 1999).
Both changes (de-conditioning of lumbar muscles and creep of
passive structures) may be characterised as detuning of the lumbar
spine. For example, an important reex is triggered too late and
within a wrong joint-angle and the adynamic muscle is not able
to protect the joint.
With this in mind, the purpose of this paper was to measure the
normal behaviour of the lumbar spine during two hours of ofce
work. Healthy subjects were investigated. The lumbar posture
and sEMG of lumbar muscles were recorded. As a more precise
measure for lumbar posture (than pelvic angle and trunk angle),
the curvature of lumbar spine was deduced. The aim of this paper
is to investigate the coherence between lumbar curvature and lumbar muscle activity. The results may provide the rst impetus for
further discussion on whether sedentary work is disadvantageous
or unhealthy.

2. Materials and methods

2.1. Subjects and procedure
Thirteen subjects (8 $; 5 #) were recruited from an insurance
company (n = 4), a software development company (n = 2) and a
health care company (n = 7). All the subjects were investigated
while undertaking their normal sedentary work at a desk (Table 1).
Inclusion criteria was no period of acute low back pain during the
12 months before measurement. Exclusion criteria were acute low
back pain, acute pain or injury of lower extremities, deformation of
the spine and known protrusion or prolapse of an intervertebral
disc.
Before work, the subjects were equipped with a small and portable measuring device. At the start of data collection, a calibration
procedure lasting approximately 12 min was carried out (see
Section 2.2).

Table 1
Age, body height, and body weight as mean (standard deviation) for all investigated
subjects.
Gender (n)

Age (years)

Body height (cm)

Body weight (kg)

Female (8)
Male (5)

36.0 (7.0)
41.2 (11.7)

168 (3.2)
182 (4.2)

61.8 (6.1)
81.2 (8.4)

363

All the subjects were investigated for a minimum of 2 h. During

the measurement, different tasks were manually marked by the researcher and written online to the data le for later identication.
The observed tasks were standing, walking, unsupported sitting,
supported sitting on backrest of the chair, long-lasting periods of
keyboard use and telephoning. Each subject performed each of
these tasks at least once, as triggered by the work to be done.
The backrest of the chair did not affect the positions of the EMGelectrodes and motion sensors. None of the subjects reported
restrictions from the measuring device. All other ofce-typical
tasks and periods in which the subjects could not be viewed by
the researcher were summarised using the miscellaneous marker
(Table 2).
All the subjects were volunteers and gave written informed
consent under the terms of the Declaration of Helsinki. The experimental protocol was reviewed and approved by the local ethics
commission.
2.2. Measurements
Using the PS11-UD measuring device (Thumedi, Jahnsbach,
Germany) the posture of the lumbar spine, the sEMG of selected
lumbar muscles and the cardiogram (for identication within
EMG signals) were measured synchronously. It is possible to measure and collect bipolar sEMG and posture data for up to 8 h with
this device. Lumbar posture was monitored by three gravity-based
sensors. The selected lumbar muscles were the longissimus muscle
at lumbar level 1 and the multidus muscle at lumbar level 4
bilaterally.
The motion sensors (size: 24  24  10 mm) were applied on the
lumbar spine at level L5, L3 and L1 using hypoallergenic doublesided adhesive tape. Each motion sensor measures spatial
orientation with an accuracy of 0.1 within the eld of gravity (e.g.
inclination from vertical axis) and is comparable to devices described in the literature (Aminian and Naja, 2004). The angular difference between the sensors in the sagittal plane was calculated as a
measure of the lumbar spine curvature (Mrl and Blickhan, 2006).
Abrasive lotion was used for skin preparation for bipolar sEMG
and ECG measurements. Where there was pronounced growth of
hair at the application position, the subjects were shaved prior to
skin preparation. After this the skin was fumigated and dried.
The electrodes used were Ag/AgCl-electrodes (H93SG, Tyco Healthcare, Germany) with a circular uptake area of 10 mm and an interelectrode distance of 25 mm. The electrode positions of the four
investigated muscles were in line with the recommendations of
SENIAM (Hermens et al., 1999).
Before data collection a calibration procedure was carried out
for identication and elimination of the ECG signal from EMG signals, for spinal posture offset-adjustment and for normalisation of
the EMG. The rst step of calibration was to measure the raw ECG
signal on each EMG channel while the subject sat relaxed and supported by the back of the chair. While occurrence of the ECG signal
(detected by ECG channel) during data collection, the device eliminates the main part of crosstalk by subtracting the ECG signal from
the sEMG signal for each single EMG channel (Mrl et al., 2010).
The second step of calibration was to eliminate the angular offset for lateral bending and axial rotation of the spine (not discussed
in this paper) due to inaccurate sensor application. The normal
shape of the lordosis in standing position was not offset-adjusted
and was given in normal angular positions.
The golden standard for EMG normalisation are records during
maximum voluntary contractions (MVC). These measurements are
laborious and depend on the subjects motivation. MVC measurements are nearly impossible at the workplace, especially for lumbar spine muscles. A special normalisation posture was therefore
undertaken by the subjects during the third step of the calibration

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F. Mrl, I. Bradl / Journal of Electromyography and Kinesiology 23 (2013) 362368

Table 2
Summary of distribution [%, relating to individual measuring time] of different tasks during ofce work for all subjects.
Subject

Standing

Walking

Uns. sitting

Sup. sitting

Keyboard

Phoning

Misc

S1
S2
S3
S4
S5
S6
S7
S8
S9
S10
S11
S12
S13

1.3
4.1
5.0
3.6
0.1
7.0
2.1
11.2
6.7
2.7

2.6
0.1

1.4
2.4
2.7
2.9
1.5
1.1
1.6
5.2
2.6
1.7
1.3
0.1
2.7

1.4
23.7
3.6
60.2
65.5
75.2
59.6
60.0
38.9
21.4
55.2
19.0
44.0

0.1
41.3
0.1
3.4
23.7
2.8
5.3
0.4
28.5
22.3
25.8
54.9
16.1

54.2
0.1
49.0
22.2
0.1
0.1
14.2
6.7
9.6
37.4

15.0
12.9

20.7
4.1
6.5
3.0
0.1
8.3
20.6
5.8
8.5
14.7

6.8

18.9
23.5
32.5
3.7
6.8
4.6
0.8
10.0
12.6
4.7
0.1
6.9
15.9

procedure. For this, the body position of the subjects was as follows: standing position, slightly bent knees and hips about 45,
the trunk tilted about 45. The researcher advised the subjects to
maintain lordosis of the lumbar spine. Within this posture the torque of the tilted trunk has to be compensated for mostly by the
lumbar muscles under investigation. Activation was moderately
comparable to an exercise in gymnastics. Subjects had to hold this
position (isometric contraction) for about 3060 s. Repeated measurements carried out previously in the laboratory showed adequate reliability and validity. All given sEMG data was
normalised to this activation (i.e. fractions of this activation).
2.3. Data processing and analysis
The PS11-UD measures and stores the raw sEMG data (4
650 Hz) at a sampling frequency of 4096 Hz. Amplication of the
signal was selected to get a resolution of 688 nV per bit. The raw
signals were high pass ltered (16 Hz), low pass ltered (1 kHz)
and band pass ltered (moving average at multiplies of 50 Hz) to
repress crosstalk from power supply lines.
During measurement, the device processes and stores the rectied and averaged activity (RMS, root mean square) at 8 Hz by

with the gain k, frequency limits fl/u, amplitude A and frequency f for
amplitude information. It also calculates and stores the median frequency (not discussed in this paper). The angular data of the motion
sensors on the spine were also stored synchronously at 8 Hz. The
lumbar exion angle was calculated by

aflex aS1  aS2 aS2  aS3

3. Results
3.1. Occurrence of ofce tasks
The majority (over 82%) of ofce work was sedentary. Only
standing and walking occurred in an erect body position and these
accounted for just 5% of the total ofce time. In the sitting posture,
unsupported sitting (41%) made up the main part, with supported
sitting only accounting for 17%. Other tasks like keyboard use (16%)
and phoning (8%) were not that frequent. In summary, ofce work
was very passive, with 5% undertaken in an erect body position and
only 2% walking (Table 2).
3.2. Different tasks and lumbar muscle activation
This passivity was accentuated by the differences in lumbar
muscle activation within different seating postures. Neither type
of sitting activated the lumbar muscles a quarter as much as normalisation posture (Fig. 1). In unsupported sitting, the longissimus
muscle showed up to 20% of the normalisation posture whereas

lumbar muscular activity during sitting

1

with inclination angle from vertical axis aSn of each single motion
sensor (S1 at lumbar level L1 . . .S3 at level L5) in sagittal plane.
All the data presented here is based on the calculated RMS and
angular position data.
The measurements taken were summarised for each task observed and presented as percentages for all subjects. For the tasks
unsupported sitting and supported sitting the lumbar curvature angle in the sagittal plane was plotted by a dened histogram.
Bins of a range of 5 within the total range from 40 (maximum
lordosis) to 20 (maximum kyphotic posture of lumbar spine) were
used. Sporadic outliers below 40 or over 20 lumbar exion angle were allocated to the rst or last bin respectively. The coincidental RMS measurements of the investigated muscles were
presented as medians and quartiles over the occurrence of lumbar
posture. The tasks standing, walking, keyboard use and telephoning were excluded from this analysis because of high variation in muscle activation due to movements of the arms.

Mu L4 ri
Mu L4 le
Lo L1 ri
Lo L1 le

0.9

0.8
0.7

rel RMS

s
Z fu
1
RMS k
A2 f df
fu  fl fl

To detect statistical differences between the different ofce

tasks, the MannWhitney U-test was used. For variations within
different postures during one task the KruskalWallis-test (nonparametric version of classical one-way ANOVA) was used. The signicance level for all tests was P = .05. Both nonparametric tests
were used because there was no normal distribution of sEMG data.

0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0

unsupported sitting

supported sitting

Fig. 1. Median of normalised lumbar muscle activation (LoL1 longissimus muscle

at lumbar level L1, MuL4 multidus muscle at lumbar level L4, le left and ri
right side, respectively) during sitting. In comparison to normalisation posture the
activation of lumbar muscles is low (P < .01, for all muscles).

F. Mrl, I. Bradl / Journal of Electromyography and Kinesiology 23 (2013) 362368

lumbar posture and muscular activity

in unsupported sitting
30

1.5

rel RMS

15

0.5

occurence [%]

occurence
LoL1 le
LoL1 ri
MuL4 le
MuL4 ri
22.5

7.5

0
40

30

20

10

10

lumbar flexion angle []

Lordosis

20

Kyphosis

Fig. 2. Median and quartiles of lumbar muscle normalised activation (LoL1

longissimus muscle at lumbar level L1, MuL4 multidus muscle at lumbar level
L4, le left and ri right side, respectively) and distribution of lumbar posture (grey
bars, right y-axis) during unsupported sitting. The activation of all lumbar muscles
within lordotic postures is moderate but very low within kyphotic curvature.
Lumbar muscle activation depends on posture (P < .001, for all muscles).

the multidus muscle had lower activity at the level of 10% of normalisation. Supported sitting was effectively passive. The longissimus muscle showed up to 12% of normalised activation. The
activity of the multidus muscle was near the limit of the resolution of the measurement device at only 5%. This low activation of
multidus muscle was below 5 lV (non-normalised value) for
most cases. The differences between the described tasks are highly
signicant (P < .01).

3.3. Lumbar muscle activity and dependency on posture

The main outcome is the dependency of lumbar muscle activity
on lumbar posture. In walking, as a reference, the lumbar spine had

lumbar posture and muscular activity

in supported sitting
1.5

30
occurence
LoL1 le
LoL1 ri
MuL4 le
MuL4 ri

rel RMS

15

0.5

occurence [%]

22.5

7.5

40

Lordosis

30

20

10

lumbar flexion angle []

10

20

Kyphosis

Fig. 3. Median and quartiles of lumbar muscle normalised activation (LoL1

longissimus muscle at lumbar level L1, MuL4 multidus muscle at lumbar level
L4, le left and ri right side, respectively) and distribution of lumbar posture (grey
bars, right y-axis) during supported sitting on the backrest of the chair. In
comparison to Fig. 2 (unsupported sitting) the distribution of postures is shifted
right. There is very low activation of all lumbar muscles within kyphotic curvature.
Lumbar muscle activation depends on posture (P < .001, for all muscles).

365

lordotic curvature (negative exion angle). A permanent change

from low (10) to pronounced lordosis (up to 40) was found
with regard to the gait cycle. Thus, there is little tilting of the trunk
forwards (10) or backwards (40) during the gait cycle.
In contrast, the lumbar posture was at or in kyphotic curvature
in sitting. The lumbar spine showed 47% lordotic curvature in
unsupported sitting and only 30% in supported sitting. Both kinds
of sitting showed only low lordotic angles (at minimum 25) in
comparison to walking. Further, the highest lumbar muscle activity
was to be found within the lordotic posture of the lumbar spine
(Figs. 2 and 3). The statement the more the lumbar spine is exed,
the lower the lumbar spines muscular activity is true for both
kinds of sitting. The dependency of lumbar muscle activation on
lumbar posture is highly signicant for all investigated muscles
(P < .001). In supported sitting, the main curvature of the lumbar
spine was pronounced kyphosis (>15, 30% of time). For this, step
by step, the pelvis slid onto the front edge of the seat and was tilted
backwards, whereas the thighs were not supported. Within this
posture, the activation of lumbar muscles was very low and below
the resolution limit of the measurement device (<5 lV) most of the
time.
3.4. Gaps in muscular activity during sitting
In phases of sitting with kyphotic lumbar posture, long periods
of very low (near the resolution limit) or no activity of lumbar
muscles were found. In unsupported sitting, the longissimus muscle at L1 showed 28% and the multidus muscle 36% of no activity,
respectively. In supported sitting this increased for the multidus
to 45%. The online lter for removing the ECG signal from the sEMG
signal of the muscles does not work perfectly. With this in mind it
is appreciable that there is more time without lumbar muscle activation: for the longissimus muscle, the periods increase to 32% in
both tasks; for the multidus muscle this increases to 41% in
unsupported sitting and to 51% in supported sitting. In summary,
during sedentary ofce work, the lumbar muscles were deactivated about 40% of working time.
4. Discussion
Inactivity of spinal paravertebral muscles during trunk exion
has been described for decades (Floyd and Silver, 1951, 1955;
Ahern et al., 1988; Dolan and Adams, 1993; McGill and Kippers,
1994; Newman and Gracovetsky, 1995). What is new in this study
is the accurate measurement of postures during long-term sitting.
There was found to be a strong dependency of lumbar muscular
activity on lumbar spine posture in the sedentary body position.
Only one study currently documents comparable data for women
(Mork and Westgaard, 2009). In contrast to the cited study, here
the angle of curvature of the lumbar spine in the sagittal plane
was deduced as a more precise measure of lumbar spine posture.
Furthermore the lumbar curvature has an impact on the sEMG of
lumbar muscles. Only global angles for trunk and thighs were measured in the earlier study (Mork and Westgaard, 2009). It is possible to incline or bend the trunk with the lumbar spine in slight
lordotic curvature. This may be the reason why the activity of lumbar muscles is more affected by the pelvis inclination angle and
less by the trunk inclination angle. A exed lumbar spine (kyphotic
posture) leads to very low activity or phases of no activity of the
lumbar muscles. This means that the exionrelaxation phenomenon is present in sitting. In laboratory settings, examining the exionrelaxation phenomenon during sitting showed no clear effect
on the lumbar muscles (OSullivan et al., 2006; Callaghan and
Dunk, 2002). The measurement times in the cited studies were
very short in comparison to the data documented here. In the eld

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F. Mrl, I. Bradl / Journal of Electromyography and Kinesiology 23 (2013) 362368

setting, while doing their own work at their own workplace, the
subjects focused on the task in hand and their lumbar muscles
relaxed.
Because the load on the lumbar spine in the sitting posture is
not small, and there is no adequate muscular support, passive
structures like ligaments and intervertebral discs or passive muscle
properties have to carry the load (Nachemson, 1966; Wilke et al.,
2001; Schultz et al., 1985; Sihvonen et al., 1988). When sitting supported by the backrest of the chair, stress on the disc is reduced,
whereas intradiscal stress is about three times greater in unsupported exed sitting (Wilke et al., 1999). There is no knowledge
about stress on the ligaments during sedentary work in vivo currently. Biomechanical models may give hints, but depending on
the optimisation parameter used and components included (e.g.
ligaments, muscles) different results were predicted (McGill,
1986; Cholewicki et al., 1995; McGill et al., 1994; Arjmand and
Shirazi-Adl, 2005, 2006; McGill et al., 2006; Brown and McGill,
2008).
Due to their viscoelasticity and the long-lasting loading
caused by sitting, creep of passive structures can be predicted
(Adams and Dolan, 1996; Solomonow et al., 1998, 1999). Step
by step, this may lead to changes in mechanical properties and
dysfunction of these structures and also to muscular dysfunction
(Solomonow et al., 2003). The load on the human lumbar spine
during sitting is probably not directly comparable to the cited
experiments, but consideration of the daily reiterative longlasting periods of sitting during ofce work (around 8 h) and
the long times for recovery of passive structures may support
this assumption (Gedalia et al., 1999). First studies also give
evidence of this hypothetical behaviour in humans (Olson
et al., 2009; Shin et al., 2009). In reality, low back pain does
not develop after some hours of ofce work, but the fact that life
in western societies is more and more physically passive (sitting
at desks, sitting to drive cars, resting in an elevator, sitting on
the couch and watching TV, etc.) may contribute to the longterm hypothesis described.
Distinct passivity due to bedrest and low back pain are associated with atrophy or fatty replacement of paravertebral muscles (Hadar et al., 1983; McConnell and Daneman, 1984;
Mattila et al., 1986; Cooper et al., 1992; Hides et al., 1994,
2007; Bloomeld, 1997; Ng et al., 1998; Danneels et al., 2000;
Kader et al., 2000; Yoshihara et al., 2001, 2003; Barker et al.,
2004; Hyun et al., 2007; Belavy et al., 2008; Lee et al., 2008).
In an animal study, the main reason for atrophy of lumbar muscles was nonexistent neural activation (Hodges et al., 2006). Only
one study documents the coherence of physical inactivity, low
back pain and atrophy of paravertebral muscles in children
(Salminen et al., 1993). It is currently speculative to assume that
years of ofce work without active leisure lead to atrophy of
paravertebral muscles. However, the increase in the cross sectional area of back muscles due to training in patients suffering
from low back pain would support this assumption (Rissanen
et al., 1995). If there is atrophy because of years of ofce work,
the muscle function to stabilise the spine is reduced and may be
a reason for the high prevalence of low back pain. Longitudinal
studies on the cross sectional area, function or force of lumbar
muscles are necessary to investigate this further.
Paravertebral muscles and passive structures of the spine are
not independent from each other. Changes in the mechanical properties of both structures and the disappearance of reexes due to
long-lasting (also low) loading, can cause the whole spine to be
out of tune (Solomonow et al., 2003; Panjabi, 1992a,b). In this condition of dysfunction, increased degeneration and low back pain
can be assumed.
The sample of 13 subjects is small and limits the explanatory
power of this study. More subjects may lead to more variation in

lumbar posture and lumbar muscle activation within the investigated tasks. In general, signicant deviations from the results presented here should not be assumed: Firstly, low or no activation of
the lumbar muscles in exed postures of the trunk also seem to be
mechanically linked in lifting (Schultz et al., 1985; Toussaint et al.,
1995). Secondly, the medians of lumbar muscle activation presented here are (near) zero within kyphotic lumbar posture during
sedentary work. Thus, 50% of time within such postures there is
low or no activation of the lumbar muscles.
5. Conclusions
In conclusion, to reduce the high prevalence of low back
pain in sedentary work, reasonable prevention is necessary.
Considering the low activation of lumbar muscles in the sitting
posture, the use of instable seats or special ofce chairs to protect the spine or to train the paravertebral muscles will fail.
This is because lumbar muscle activation depends more on
the task than on the ofce chair used (van Dien et al.,
2001). Further, lumbar muscle activation does not differ when
seated on an exercise ball, different dynamic ofce chairs or
on a reference chair (McGill et al., 2006; Ellegast et al., 2012).
Again the spine has to be seen as a complex of muscles, passive
structures and neural control: In the sitting posture, the passive
structures are stretched/loaded, the muscles only have low activation within the stretched condition, and the lumbar spine is
in at or kyphotic curvature. A natural way to activate the paravertebral muscles within the normal length conditions within
the lordotic curvature of the lumbar spine may be breaks for
walking, working in standing position and active leisure in erect
body position.
Conict of interest
The authors have no conict of interest, no funding.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Carol Keelan for language assistance. Thanks to
Sabine Franke for data collection.
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Yoshihara K, Shirai Y, Nakayama Y, Uesaka S. Histochemical changes in the

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Falk Mrl received his Master in Sport Science from

the University of Jena in 1999 and his PhD in 2004.
From 2000 to 2001 he has been postgraduate at the
Chair of Motion Science at the University of Jena.
Since 2002 he has been a scientist at FSA mbH. His
research focuses on passive properties of the lumbar
spine and biomechanical modelling.

Ingo Bradl studied Physics and received his PhD

(theoretical physics) in 1987 from the Technical
University Otto von Guericke, Magdeburg. Since
1995 he works at the Biomechanics group within the
Prevention Department of the German Social Accident Insurance Institution for the foodstuffs and
catering industry. Since 2003 he is the head of the
Biomechanics group. He is guest scientist at the
University Hospital Jena, Clinic for Trauma-, Handand Reconstructive Surgery, Division for Motor
Research, Pathophysiology and Biomechanics. His
research focuses on the prevention of occupational
induced musculoskeletal disease and on the development and application of related mobile measurement methods.