Posture follows movement like a shadow”. First introduced by English Physiologist Charles Sherrington in 1922. What does that mean? Well, our posture will not only determine how we look, but also how we move as we age. I believe that posture and alignment are one of the most overlooked yet significant aspects of great health.

5 TIPS FOR IMPROVING POSTURE AND PREVENTING THE DREADED “HUMPBACK”

Your posture is the direct reflection of the alignment of your spine, and since it is the “effect” of good alignment, and alignment can be changed, the good news is that you have direct control over your posture. So follow these five tips and you will not only look better, you will move better, feel better and age better.

1. Be aware of your alignment. One exercise I have patients do is to stand against a wall with their head, shoulder blades, butt and heels against the wall. Then I ask them to keep their spine in that alignment and tip toe away from the wall. Does that feel different I ask them. “Wow, YES” they normally tell me. Well, that wall is in better alignment than your spine. Use the wall as a reference for good vertical posture and alignment. Make that feeling of standing against the wall the new norm for your posture.

2. Stop texting with your head in flexion. “Text Neck” is a new condition due to how much we are using our phones, our kids especially! Bring the phone up to a neutral eye level. Don’t flex your neck forward, it causes forward head posture which eventually leads to bad posture.

3. Use a standing desk. If we were meant to sit for long periods of time, we would have 4 legs like a chair instead of two. If you sit for a living or for more than 5 hours a day, get a standing desk.

4. Strengthen your core. Our alignment is only as good as our core strength. If we have weak abdominals, weak gluts and weak spinal muscles, there is no way we can have good posture, for it is our core that supports us upright against gravity. Most patients we test have extremely weak core muscles.

5. Learn our “Posture Prep” exercises. At Living Well 4 Life Center, we’ve developed a series of core strengthening and core lengthening (stretching) series of exercises that we call “Posture Prep”. The changes we see when we combine the Posture Prep series with Chiropractic Adjustments is amazing and the before and after pictures speak for themselves.