Guides · Guide
Nobody stands badly on purpose. They stand badly because the desk is an inch too high, the screen is six inches too low, and nothing in the setup prompts them to move.
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The short answer
Desk at elbow height with shoulders relaxed; top of the screen at roughly eye level, an arm's length away; wrists straight and floating rather than resting on the desk edge; weight evenly on both feet with knees soft; and a position change every 30 minutes. The screen height usually needs a monitor arm, because desk height and screen height are set by different parts of your body.
Shoulders relaxed, elbows at about 90 degrees, forearms parallel to the floor. Too high and your shoulders creep up and stay up; too low and you lean forward from the hips. Get the number first.
Or slightly below. If your desk is set correctly for your elbows, a monitor on its factory stand will almost always be too low — you will be looking down all day, which is a neck problem rather than a back one.
Reach out; your fingertips should roughly touch the screen. Closer than that and you will crane; further and you will lean in.
Not bent up, not resting the heel of your hand on the desk edge while you type. A wrist rest is for pauses, not for typing on.
The most-broken rule in standing work. See below.
If the keyboard is too far forward you will reach, which loads the shoulders. Pull it toward you; on a converter, that is the keyboard tier's whole purpose.
UT Southwestern's guidance is to change positions, shift your weight and take short walk breaks every 30 minutes. This is the check that matters most, because a perfect position held for three hours is still a static load.
What standing still actually looks like after twenty minutes
Three things help, in order of how reliably they work:
You will sit for more of the day than you stand, so the seated half deserves the same attention:
Which adjustments to look for when buying.
From the picks
An arm for the screen that is too low, a contoured mat for the locked knees, and a chair whose lumbar support lands where yours actually is.
Best monitor arm
The arm every other arm is copying. A 26 lb capacity, 13 inches of lift and a 10-year warranty, on a constant-force spring that holds position instead of drooping in month four.
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Best overall standing mat
A deliberately not-flat mat: the mounds and calf shelf exist to stop you standing still, which is the actual cause of standing-desk foot pain. Backed for sixteen years.
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Best chair for back pain
Height-adjustable lumbar support is the feature that matters for a bad back, and this is the cheapest Steelcase that has it — behind a 400 lb rating and a 12-year parts-and-labor warranty.
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Questions
Top of the screen at or slightly below eye level. Too high forces you to tilt your head back, which is worse than looking slightly down.
Briefly, no — it is a position change, which is the thing you want. Continuously, it puts asymmetric load through one shoulder and hip. And do not sit on the desk: the capacity rating is a static distributed figure.
Not required, and a low rail or box to alternate one foot onto is one of the cheapest ways to stop locking your knees.
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Receipts
Specs come from the maker's own spec pages and manuals; health claims from named medical institutions and published research; tax mechanics from IRS material. Where a figure isn't published, we say so rather than estimating it. Read the full method.