A couple of days ago I woke up in the morning and bounced out of bed, eager to hit the keyboard and make some more dollars. I took two steps and .. since then I've spent most of my time laying flat on my stomach on the floor with icepacks on the spot in my back where I popped a disc. When I do work, like now, I have to stand at my computer desk because sitting is just impossible.

"Sitting hunched over a keyboard for hours at a time is a sure recipe for disaster that will usually happen at the worst possible time."

The sad thing for me is that this was completely avoidable. I have always been fairly active and even when I began working full-time as a webmaster I continued to exercise by walking nearly every day. I have also watched my diet, got plenty of rest and occasionally taken entire days off staying away from the computer.

Unfortunately that has not been enough to prevent back problems for me and it won't be enough for you either. Sitting hunched over a keyboard for hours at a time is a sure recipe for disaster that will usually happen at the worst possible time.

Investing in ergonomic furniture is not enough either. I have an excellent chair that has good lumbar support. I have even supplemented that in the past with a back-roll to increase the support for my back. I have a desk that allows me to position my keyboard at the correct height for me but it is simply not enough.

Not for one moment am I suggesting that ergonomic furniture is not important. It most certainly is and if you are not using a good chair and desk then you need to invest in one as soon as possible. Working on the dining room table will bring on problems much quicker and you would be surprised how drastically pain can reduce our ability to think clearly and achieve our goals.

Of course, you need to watch your weight, maintain a balanced diet and establish good sleep patterns. All of those factors will affect the way you work and will enable you to work in this industry for years to come. The macho image of webmasters living on pizza and caffeine while working 90 hour days has the opposite effect. The vast majority of webmasters who try to live that type of lifestyle don't remain in the industry for very long.

So if maintaining a healthy diet, good sleep patterns and working with ergonomic furniture isn't enough - what more should you do?

As I said earlier, I walk nearly every day and that still didn't prevent my problems; although it probably did delay it a bit. So it's obvious that exercise in general isn't the answer, it is doing specific exercises that provide the solution to the problems that webmasters face!

To help you understand the situation let me try and describe the average back in layman's terms. Think of your spine as a series of blocks of bone, each block is separated from the next by a disk that you could think of as a piece of rubber. The younger you are the more flexible each piece of rubber is. When a relatively young back bends those pieces of rubber bend with the back and keep the blocks of bone separate. Each time you bend, the rubber is squeezed by the adjoining blocks; when you straighten, those pieces of rubber spring back into their normal shape and position.

As you get older those pieces of rubber become harder and don't bend as easily. They take much longer to pop back into shape after you have bent and then straightened your back and sometimes portions of those rubber pieces get caught between the blocks of bone.

If you spend hours every day with your back almost immobile, as most webmasters do, those pieces of rubber are going to become harder much sooner. Every disk in your back will become affected and it only takes one to get caught for it to totally ruin your future plans.

The way to prevent this sort of occurrence is really simple, it won't eat up large amounts of your day, it won't cost you a fortune and it could mean the difference between a long fruitful career as an adult webmaster and a short painful one.

Every hour just take a ten minute break, get up from your computer and do some exercises that target your back. The exercises are not difficult and they will keep your back and the disks nice and supple.

The best exercise of all is to lie on your tummy on the floor. Put your hands beside you, roughly parallel with your shoulders, keep your hips on the floor and do a push-up until your arms are straight. It is really simple to do but don't be surprised if you cannot straighten your arms. Repeat that exercise a few times every hour until you can straighten your arms.

When you have reached the point where you can straighten your arms you can reduce the number of times you do that exercise to just a few minutes each day. When you reach that level then still take those 10 minute breaks each hour but try this exercise instead. Simply stand up straight, place your hands on your hips and bend backwards to flex your spine and repeat 4 or 5 times.

The end result of an exercise regime as I have just described will be a back full of flexible disks that won't get caught when you bend. For an investment of just a few minutes each hour you will have a back free of pain and you won't have to waste hours closely inspecting the carpet while cold packs sit on your back to reduce the inflammation.