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Why do we need to correct our posture?

I bet you already know your posture is important. And when you were a kid, your mom told you to sit up straight, pull your shoulders back, you’re going to get stuck that way. And you thought “mom doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

However, here are the facts.

Actual problems with upper back posture issues:

• Headaches: a 2011 study linked poor posture to headaches
• Back pain: a 1999 study in clinical rheumatology showed the correlation between posture and back pain).
• Lower self esteem:  A 2009 study in the journal of social psychology showed that posture affects feelings of self confidence and job satisfaction.
• checkFatigue and sleep issues: slumped posture is a diagnostic feature of fatigue and depression in a 2017 study in the journal of behavioral therapy and experimental psychiatry).
• checkHip,  knee and ankle pain: a 2014 study showed that posture abnormalities showed a higher instance of knee and ankle pain.
• checkDigestive issues: foreward posture affects the diaphragm and can put pressure on the stomach, causing gerd, and other digestive problems.
• checkThoracic outlet syndrome: numbness the arms and hands due to forward shoulder position.

• Stress: negatively affects your mood (2014 study).
• Arthritis: pressure on the joints over time lead to wearing of the joints and arthritis, the degenerative type not the other type.

This is what your mom meant by “put your shoulders back!”

Put your shoulders back, you don’t want headaches, back pain, lower self esteem, sleep problems, hip, knee and ankle pain, digestive problems, stress, arthritis.

Go ahead and thank your mom for the good advice! So we know that there’s something we need to do, now we need to take the steps to do it.

• String on the head position – Imagine a string is attached to the top of your head. Pretend someone is pulling up on the string, your head will naturally lift upward and backward.
• Locking shoulders – bring the shoulder blades slightly together and downward.
• In between the doorway – stand in a doorway with the arms on each side and lean forward stretching out the pectoral muscles.
• checkWall angels – stand with the feet, buttocks, shoulders and head against the wall, place the arms against the wall and lift them as if you’re making “snow angels” against the wall.
• checkExternal rotations – stand with your elbows to your sides and your hands forward (arms are at 90 degrees) rotate hands outward while keeping elbows to your side.

Now I bet you’re wondering, this is good and all but I think I Need to see how to do these exercises to be able to perform them effectively.

Well, I feel your pain and I have a podcast freebie available for you that will help you with this. It’s our training video, 5 exercises to improve forward head posture. So click the link and find out how to start making changes today.

4 Rules When Exercising

Now when it comes to exercise. There are a 4 Rules that you must understand if you’re going to have any level of success.

• 1Strengthening the muscles takes time. Within 10 days your muscles will be firing more efficiently. So you may begin to feel stronger but you haven’t developed any muscle yet. Thus, you are not actually any stronger.
• 2Strength changes take time. About 4 weeks for actual muscle development that creates stability, so if you’re doing these exercises and you don’t notice any change, you need to make sure that you’re spending the proper length of time to see some change.
• 3Now, after 4 weeks you’ve noticed SOME change. These exercises should be performed over a long period time so that you will experience regular progressive improvement in your symptoms. And an increase in your health. So if you want to change your health improve your posture.
• 4Sometime there are structural misalignments that are going to cause you to continue to have problems even after you exercise, you are going to see a healthcare provider that will help you to really change the underlying structure. Your family chiropractor who focuses on structural correction is going to be your best first choice.

Read Next: We’ve Been Doing Posture All Wrong

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