Articles
Posture
The quality of your posture can make a big difference to your life. Good posture can make you look and feel younger, stronger and more confident. It can also help improve your breathing, advance your sports performance and decrease your risk of injury. And, over the course of your life, good posture help can prevent painful physical strain in your joints.
Over time your body can get into poor movement patterns for many reasons, but you can re-educate your body to improve your posture and quality of life.
Changing Habits
- Find neutral This is the position in which the spine is best equipped to deal with external stress and strain. You should be able to find neutral while sitting, standing, and moving.
- Remind yourself often Do posture checks throughout the day e.g. while at your desk, driving, walking, and standing.
- Vary your position if you can Counter the effects of constant sitting by standing/moving as often as you can, standing in correct alignment requires much less muscular effort than sitting with proper form does.
- Extend your back Learn how to properly perform back extension exercises, research has shown these exercises can improve or eliminate certain back pain.
- Abdominal exercises Learn the correct exercises to train the abdominals to hold the pelvis in neutral alignment. Do more active stabilisation training rather than traditional curls and sit ups.
- Tension Is often stored in the upper and middle back including the neck and shoulders. Learning to release tension and also to mobilise the upper back can be beneficial.
- Don't ignore your upper /middle back Strengthening the postural muscles in your back can help improve back pain caused by slouching.
- Stretching Inflexibility in certain muscle groups particularly those attached to the pelvis can affect posture as well. muscles should be strong, but also flexible
- Education If you are unsure at all, check with a qualified person, postural problems can have a serious negative impact on your health and quality of life.