Dynamic Sitting Exercise

Dynamic Sitting Exercise vs. McKenzie Prone Press-Up (Low back pain and quality of life)

The Dynamic Sitting Exercise (DSE)

Life can be busy. And with this busyness, people often do not have the time for lower back pain exercises. In 2010, Jerome Fryer (the owner and developer of Dynamic Disc Designs Corp.) set out to measure a simple seated decompression strategy for the lumbar spine. A pilot study used an upright MRI to investigate changes in the lumbar spine before and after this Dynamic Sitting Exercise (DSE) 1

It was originally coined “chair-care decompression exercise” to make it memorable. In a recent article written in the Indian Journal of Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy, the researchers renamed it DSE and compared it to the popular McKenzie prone press-up. 2

 

Dynamic Sitting Exercise
Dynamic Sitting Exercise (DSE)

 

McKenzie Prone Press-up
McKenzie Prone Press-up

These researchers recruited thirty adults in the age range of 20-30 years with mechanical low back pain. To read the full inclusion and exclusion criteria, you can visit the full-text link in the references below. They randomly assigned the participants to two groups: the DSE group or the McKenzie prone press-up group. Each subject conducted 6 repetitions within the 5-minute interval with the exercises being conducted at the beginning of the 5 minutes, followed by 4 minutes of rest. Over the course of 30 minutes, each participant would have performed 6 repetitions multiplied by 5 sets for a total of 30 repetitions over the course of 30 minutes. This was equivalent to 2.5 minutes of active exercise over the course of 30 minutes.

Exercise Protocol
Exercise Protocol

 

The DSE instructions included:

  1. sit upright
  2. place hands-on seat pan
  3. push down on the seat pan to offload the lower spine
  4. participants should feel a slight stretching in the lower back
  5. hold for 5 seconds
  6. return to neutral for 5 seconds
  7. while returning to neutral, draw-in-abdomen.

 

The McKenzie Prone Press-Up instructions included:

  1. lie down on the abdomen
  2. extend back while on elbows and palms down (neutral position)
  3. perform press-up maneuver with straight arms for 5 seconds
  4. return to neutral for 5 seconds

 

Over 6 weeks, outcome measures included the Visual Analog Scale for pain and the Short Form-36 Health Survey Questionaire for quality of life.

What did they conclude?

Both forms of exercise demonstrated improvement of pain and quality of life. However, the DSE outperformed the McKenzie Prone Press-up in this group of mechanical low back pain adults.

Overall, this paper could have been written a little better. Their conclusions were bold and overly confident. It is still an important paper to share as the practicality of investing a few seconds of offloading to your work-day while sitting looks to be promising in those with lower back pain in this age range.