Breakdown of Die Dehnung verbessert meine Haltung, sodass ich beim Sitzen weniger Rückenschmerzen habe.
Questions & Answers about Die Dehnung verbessert meine Haltung, sodass ich beim Sitzen weniger Rückenschmerzen habe.
Both die Dehnung and das Dehnen can be translated as stretching, but they feel slightly different in German:
die Dehnung
- A regular noun (feminine).
- Often used for a specific stretch or the general concept of a stretch as an exercise or state.
- Sounds a bit more like a “thing”:
- Die Dehnung dauert 30 Sekunden. – The stretch lasts 30 seconds.
das Dehnen
- A nominalised verb (from dehnen), neutral.
- Emphasises the activity/process of stretching rather than the stretch as an object or exercise.
- Often closer to English stretching as an activity:
- Regelmäßiges Dehnen ist wichtig. – Regular stretching is important.
In your sentence, die Dehnung can be understood as “(this) stretch” or “the act of stretching” in a slightly more concrete, exercise-like sense, which is very natural in contexts like sports, physiotherapy, fitness advice, etc.
You could say Dehnen verbessert meine Haltung as well; that would sound like “Stretching (in general) improves my posture.” Using die Dehnung makes it feel a bit more like a specific stretching exercise or type of stretching.
Verbessert is the correct 3rd person singular present-tense form of verbessern:
- Infinitive: verbessern – to improve
- 3rd person singular: er/sie/es verbessert – he/she/it improves
In the sentence:
- Subject: die Dehnung (3rd person singular)
- Verb: verbessert
- Direct object: meine Haltung
So it literally means: “The stretch improves my posture.”
Why not verbessert sich?
- sich verbessern = “to improve (itself/himself/herself)”
- That would mean the posture is improving itself:
- Meine Haltung verbessert sich. – My posture is improving.
Here, the idea is that the stretching is actively improving my posture, so we use verbessert with a direct object (meine Haltung), not the reflexive version.
The verb verbessern is a regular transitive verb: it takes a direct object in the accusative case.
Pattern:
jemand / etwas verbessert etwas
= someone/something improves something
In your sentence:
- die Dehnung – subject (nominative)
- meine Haltung – direct object (accusative)
- → die Dehnung verbessert meine Haltung
You’d only use the dative with verbs or structures that require it, e.g. helfen (jemandem helfen), danken (jemandem danken), etc. Verbessern does not take a dative object in this basic sense; it wants an accusative object.
sodass is a subordinating conjunction that introduces a consequence or result. It corresponds to English “so that / such that / with the result that”.
Meaning in your sentence:
- Die Dehnung verbessert meine Haltung, sodass ich beim Sitzen weniger Rückenschmerzen habe.
→ “The stretching improves my posture, so that / with the result that I have less back pain when sitting.”
Comparison:
dass
- Neutral “that”, just introduces a content clause.
- Die Dehnung verbessert meine Haltung, sodass … = cause → consequence.
- Die Dehnung verbessert meine Haltung, dass … is wrong.
weil
- Means “because”, introduces a reason, not a consequence.
- Ich habe weniger Rückenschmerzen, weil die Dehnung meine Haltung verbessert.
– I have less back pain because the stretching improves my posture.
damit
- Means “so that / in order that”, and expresses purpose / intention, not just consequence.
- Ich dehne mich, damit ich beim Sitzen weniger Rückenschmerzen habe.
– I stretch so that I have less back pain when sitting. (I do it with this goal.)
So:
- sodass → result/consequence
- weil → reason
- damit → purpose/intention
- dass → neutral “that” (not used for cause/result)
In standard German, subordinate clauses (introduced by words like dass, weil, wenn, sodass) put the finite verb at the end.
Your clause:
- Conjunction: sodass
- Subject: ich
- Other elements: beim Sitzen weniger Rückenschmerzen
- Verb (finite): habe
Order:
sodass – ich – beim Sitzen – weniger Rückenschmerzen – habe
This verb-final order is a core rule of German subordinate clauses:
- …, weil ich Rückenschmerzen habe.
- …, dass ich weniger Rückenschmerzen habe.
- …, wenn ich lange sitze.
- …, obwohl ich jeden Tag Sport mache.
In main clauses, the finite verb is in second position:
- Ich habe weniger Rückenschmerzen.
- Beim Sitzen habe ich weniger Rückenschmerzen.
beim Sitzen literally comes from bei dem Sitzen, contracted to beim.
Structure:
- bei (preposition) + dem (dative article, neuter, singular)
- Sitzen: nominalised verb (from sitzen, to sit)
So:
- bei dem Sitzen → beim Sitzen
- Meaning: “when/while sitting”, “during sitting”, “while I’m seated”.
This is a very common German pattern:
- beim Essen – while eating
- beim Lesen – while reading
- beim Arbeiten – while working
You could also say:
- …, sodass ich weniger Rückenschmerzen habe, wenn ich sitze.
(a full clause “when I sit”)
But beim Sitzen is more compact and sounds very natural in this context.
Both weniger and wenige are related to “few/less”, but they’re used differently:
- weniger = less / fewer (comparative of wenig)
→ expressing a comparison or reduction: less than before. - wenige = few (small number)
→ focusing on the small number itself, without necessarily comparing.
In your sentence, you are clearly comparing before and after stretching, so weniger is correct:
- weniger Rückenschmerzen – less back pain (than before)
wenige Rückenschmerzen would mean “only a few back pains” (which is already a low amount) and is less natural here. The idea is not “only a few pains”, but “fewer pains than I used to have”.
German often uses plural where English uses a mass noun in the singular.
- English: pain (mass noun)
- German: often Schmerzen (literally “pains”), especially for recurring or longer-lasting pain.
So:
- Ich habe Rückenschmerzen. – literally “I have back pains”, but translated as “I have back pain.”
- Ich habe Kopfschmerzen. – “I have a headache / head pain.”
- Ich habe Zahnschmerzen. – “I have toothache / tooth pain.”
Using the singular Rückenschmerz is possible, but it’s much less common and usually sounds more technical or medical, referring to a specific type of pain rather than the general problem.
So weniger Rückenschmerzen is the idiomatic way to say “less back pain”.
All nouns in German are capitalised, and Rückenschmerzen is a noun (in fact, a compound noun).
- Rücken – back
- Schmerzen – pains
Combined: Rückenschmerzen – “back pains / back pain”.
So it must be capitalised just like Haltung, Dehnung, Haus, etc. This rule applies even if the noun comes from a verb or adjective (e.g. das Sitzen, das Lesen, die Schönheit).
The order ich habe beim Sitzen weniger Rückenschmerzen is very natural, but word order is somewhat flexible in German, so other versions are possible:
- Ich habe beim Sitzen weniger Rückenschmerzen.
(emphasis more on the situation: when sitting, I have less back pain.) - Ich habe weniger Rückenschmerzen beim Sitzen.
(slightly more emphasis on the amount: less back pain, and that’s specifically when sitting.)
In your subordinate clause:
- …, sodass ich beim Sitzen weniger Rückenschmerzen habe.
is the standard, smoothest version.
You could also say:
- …, sodass ich weniger Rückenschmerzen beim Sitzen habe.
This is grammatically correct, but the first version (putting beim Sitzen earlier) generally flows better. German tends to place context phrases like beim Sitzen, am Morgen, im Alltag relatively early in the clause.
You can, but it sounds less natural in this context.
Die Dehnung verbessert meine Haltung.
→ feels like you mean a specific stretch (e.g. “this type of stretching / this exercise”).Dehnung verbessert meine Haltung.
→ feels more like a very general statement, almost like “Stretching (as a concept) improves my posture”, said in a rather abstract or headline-like way.
German usually likes an article (die, eine, etc.) with concrete countable nouns like Dehnung, especially in a full sentence like this. Without the article, it can sound a bit like a scientific heading or a slogan, which might not be what you want in normal speech.