Posture - How to regain it and keep it.

Good posture starts with good sitting and standing habits. Todays lifestyles makes it very challenging to keep good posture. These days we might find ourselves watching television for several hours, using our phones texting or surfing the internet,  at work working at a computer most of the day, living with high levels of stress, and trapped in unhappy situations.  If you spend most of your day in one or serval of these lifestyle patterns you will develop bad posture. Which can lead to back, neck, shoulder and hip pain. One good thing about the human body is that its very pliable. Which makes it possible to regain good posture. Posture is an imbalance in muscle strength and flexibility. Your back muscles  should be the strongest muscle group on your upper torso but those who have bad posture, the back muscles are the weakest muscle group and the chest muscles are very tight, not necessary strong but tight. Gravity is always forcing us down to the ground but if we are leaning forward most of the time our back muscles become overstretch and weak. The muscles on the front of the body becomes short and tight. The tight muscle will not let us  stand erect again, until they are stretch out and the back muscles are strengthen to where they're strong enough to hold us in and upright posture. There still is hope. 

Most of us might think exercise is good for your posture. However, exercising could even make your bad posture worse. Say for instance you just started working out and you already have bad posture. If you start strengthening your muscles first you are merely re-enforcing the bad posture by strengthening tight muscles. If you are just starting to workout you should start with flexibility and mobility training to re-set your posture first. If not soon or later you will develop a pain issue in your joints, back, neck or shoulders.

Exercising can create bad posture if you do not use good form when you workout also. I stress to each client that form and technique is very important. What if you exercise for years with bad form. If sitting for hours through your life watching television and you develop bad posture, than exercising for years with bad technique will do the same. Its just this simple. 

Here are 10 tips to have good posture:

1. Stand every hour and walk around.
2. Reduce your tv watching.
3. Only spend a designated amount of time on your phone.
4. Sit up correctly.
5. Strengthen your core and back.
6. Become more active.
7. Think positive.
8. Adjust your work station.(invest in a standing desk).
9. Stretch every morning.
10. Invest into a posture training program

Bonus - If you workout.

1. Always stretch before and after your workouts for at least 10 minutes.
2. Train your back muscles 70/30 percent to the front muscles.(The posterior) - all back muscles, glutes, hamstrings, and calves should be as strong or stronger than the front muscles.(anterior), but not the reverse.) 
3. Develop perfect technique to reduce injuries. 
4. The T-spine should be mobile. If your T-spine is not mobile then it will be very difficult to have good posture. In every workout spend time to improve  T-spine mobility. If you can reach an optimal level of mobility you will see your posture improve very quickly.

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​If you have questions. Email Reggie
Reggie