I’m sure many of us had a parent or grandparent tell us to stop slouching.
I know I did! Why didn’t I listen when I was younger? It took me going to physical therapy school to start paying attention to why posture is important.
Let me give you the run down on posture.
You may ask, “why do so many of us slouch, lean on one elbow or hinge on our hip?”
The main reason is that it is really easy to do when we get tired.
When our postural muscles don’t have enough strength of endurance to hold us in good posture we start to rest on the passive structures in our bodies (aka non-muscular tissue) to hold us in one position.
What is the benefit of good posture?
The main benefit of good posture is to distribute forces evenly throughout our body and reduced pressure on areas that shouldn’t be stressed.
For example, the classic slouchy forward head posture can cause irritation of the joints in the neck, tightness of the muscles in the neck, and pinching of the nerves in your neck that can lead to pain, numbness/tingling, and dysfunction of your arm.
Good posture naturally encourages your core muscles to become more active.
Good posture aids with encouraging diaphragmatic breathing. Diaphragmatic breathing is so beneficial to our bodies in many ways, but to name a few:
It helps activate our parasympathetic nervous system to help reduce stress and improve digestion
It helps to improve our core strength
It helps to improve our balance
If you want to know further about diaphragmatic breathing and how to do it, click here to see the blog post titled “One exercise to improve core strength, reduce stress, and improve muscle recovery.”
Why do I keep reverting back to my old postures?
The quick answer is because it is easy for our bodies to go back to where they habitually have been.
Our muscles, fascia, joints, and ligaments get used to a certain tension that is placed on them and accommodate to this.
Therefore, certain muscles may become tight with our habitually poor posture and then limit us from achieving good posture.
If my body has now conformed to my poor posture, how will my body ever adjust to good posture?
The same principles apply with good posture that applied to poor posture, meaning that our bodies will conform to what we ask it to do.
If you constantly practice good posture, the muscles, fascia, joints, and ligaments will begin to adjust themselves accordingly. It will be easier and easier to hold this posture as you practice.
Be patient though, this doesn’t happen over night! Think about how long it took your body to get used to poor posture!
Here’s a breakdown of some of the main components you should be looking at with your posture:
Ideally when you are standing, if someone were to look at you from the side, your ears should be in line with your shoulders which should be over your hips and ankle bones.
You should be able to draw one straight line from your ears to your shoulders to your hips and to your ankles.
The cues that I give my patients are:
#1 Think about lifting your chest up and growing taller. The phrase “growing taller’ is key as this encourages you to avoid over-arching your back as you stand up taller.
#2 Think about a string drawing you up from the back of your neck. This encourages you to tuck you chin slightly and avoid the forward head posture.
#3 When standing, shift your pelvis back so that you feel the weight of your body more in the heels of your feet rather than the balls of your feet.
Other things to think about: Make sure to have a slight bend in the knees to avoid locking them into extension, place your pelvis in neutral so that it is not rocking forwards or backwards.
In sitting, the same principles apply except for your ankles will not be in line with the ears, shoulders and hips. Keeping your pelvis in neutral is a good starting point in order to stack the rest of your body above it.
Try to avoid sitting with your legs crossed all day, leaning to one side on your elbow, and sitting into your hip while standing mostly on one leg.
If you can work on these things, you are off to a great start!
I suggest setting a timer for various points throughout the day to help remind you to check in with your posture.
It’s easy to get wrapped up in something else and revert back to old habits.
Here’s a video to help you with your posture journey: Click here
Shoot us an email here to let us know how you do and if you have any questions!