#Worklyf for most of us means sitting in front of a screen all day… too busy to take lunch, stretch regularly and sit up straight – sound familiar? To combat this, we enlisted our desk-bound health and fitness writer Larissa Yu to test a little device designed to help get our posture back on track ASAP.
Forget desk exercises (bor-ing!), I wanted to find out if the Upright Go, a sci-fi-looking device that keeps popping up in my Insta feed, could cure my lazy posture. Apparently you just stick it on your upper back and it zaps you when you slouch – too easy!
The unboxing: it looks like a mini-mouse! (Photo: Larissa Yu)
Unboxing the Upright Go (which is the size of a pack of gum and looks like a cute mini computer mouse), you get user manuals, reusable adhesive stickers, a USB charging cord and travel carry case. I was too impatient to read the manuals so just Googled how to start. Thank you, Interwebs!
After downloading the app and charging the unit for 10-15 minutes I was good to go. I was interested to find out how strong my mind-body connection really is. Studies show that slouching not only puts extra strain on muscles and joints creating chronic back pain, it makes you lethargic and long-term can even affect your emotions and psychological state…
So after signing into the app, syncing it with the device and entering gender, height, weight, age and daily lifestyle habits, it gave me my customised 24-day training program.
The app gives you a customised training plan and real-time feedback (Photo: Larissa Yu)
I started using the device in Training (vibration) mode for six minutes, once a day. As you progress, training times get longer and more frequent. The little zaps vibrate less than your phone, definitely not the lab-rat electric shock I was expecting… more like a tickle.
After you finish training, the app prompts you to switch to Tracking (non-vibrating) mode and wear it for at least another hour or two so it can collect data about your posture habits to give you feedback. It was all over quite quickly, I assumed you’d have to wear it all day long so that was a nice surprise. Small and comfortable, I forgot I was even wearing it until it buzzed (it just sits neatly between your shoulder blades).
CONCLUSION: The goal is to maintain good posture 60-90% of the day. Day One for me was 15% upright, 85% slouched so I clearly had some work to do… by Day Three I had improved to 74% upright, 26% slouched. Day Five saw me at 99% upright, 1% slouched – if that’s not proof that this actually works I don’t know what is!
Named one of Kickstarter’s most successful wearable device campaigns EVER, it was motivating to see my real-time daily progress in the app, especially if like me you’re naturally competitive and want to beat yesterday’s score. I was so horrified by my Day One stats that I was determined to NOT be a hunchback for life. More importantly, I felt all high-tech sexy using it, much more so than doing neck stretches every half hour. Bad posture be gone!
TIP: Set the device to Active mode, rather than Sitting or Standing. It’s pretty sensitive to movement and was vibrating every time I reached for my mouse or the phone at work.
Interested? The UPRIGHT GO Posture Trainer, $119.95, is available here.
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