Stick Your Neck Out! (but not too far.)
Essential exercises, stretches and tips for the working artist.
Whenever artists get together, it’s a countdown to when one of us talks about some kind of back pain, wrist ailment or a kink in the neck.
Heads up! (Literally)
When drawing for long hours, it’s important to keep your head in a position that isn’t putting strain on your neck. Your head weighs, on average, 8.26% of your total body weight (I’m not a doctor, but I googled it) -That means that your neck muscles are trying to hold that up just with regular posture.
So, when you crane your neck down, especially for hours at a time, it creates pressure on both the muscles and the discs at the top of the spine. You should always take breaks to stretch your neck lest you develop a dreadful hunch. Like me.
I got this great card in the mail from the very talented
, which was a perfect reminder of the importance of artists being mindful of their physical health. Over the years I’ve seen so many talented career artists hunched, riddled with pain, unable to do the work they once could because they can’t sit for the same extended periods.I switched to working at a standing desk the past 2 years and found, after the initial discomfort as I adjusted, it made a huge difference to my posture. I stand on a foam anti-fatigue mat with nubs things on it, which you can order here if you want to try it. You could also try the hand-standing desk, (see below) but that would just be showing off.
Kriota Willberg’s book, Draw Stronger is an excellent resource for any artist who wants to actually be able to sustain a long career without having to have shoulder surgery or develop RSI/Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. Kriota gives invaluable tips on how to avoid these common injuries in the book— I can’t recommend it highly enough. It sits on my desk and gets a lot of use… as you can tell from the dog-eared pages.
You can order the book here.
You can also follow
Chairs are important. Posture is important. Drawing Desk angles are important.
So is getting up, taking breaks, and —I know you’re going to hate it— foam rolling and stretching. It’s painful, but it offsets a lot of future discomfort if you just bite the bullet and do it even once a week.
Here are some stretches I do regularly to help with my ever-increasing number of drawing-related pains. I drew them for you to try out. Let me know in the comments if you have any hacks or tips for wrist/back/neck/shoulder health.
Further Reading: The Design Sketchbook
I’ve had repetitive strain injury for over a decade, maybe two. But I use really old software called Mac breakz. It basically just forces me to take a break every 20 minutes and do some exercises. And it gets really cross with me if I ignore it. And when I ignore it, I notice at the end of the day because, my hands really hurt. Take breaks! Keep well xx
Yes, yes, yes, this is SO important!!!