Can good posture help and can poor posture hurt?

Sure, good posture makes you look better, but does it have any internal effect?  Is good posture really that important?

In a nutshell, YES!

Our posture is a coordination of our nervous system, our muscular and fascial systems and our habits and experiences in our body.  It is our starting point for movement and balance, but more importantly, it is necessary for internal body function – breathing, blood flow etc.  If your posture is off balance anywhere in your body, or is imperfect, there will be implications with movement.  Take breathing for example, if our shoulders are hunched forward or our torso is flexed (bent) forward, then our diaphragm, our deepest core muscle is unable to descend on inhalation and because our head is forward and shoulders are rounded forward, neither can our ribs fully expand, which means that because of a few postural alterations, you cannot take a deep breath.  Extend this concept to sports and movement.  If our posture is altered, we cannot achieve the ranges of motion necessary to complete the demands of our activities.  Instead, our body compensates and calls on other muscles to complete the task of the affected ones.  Unfortunately, all too often, these helper muscles are not designed to support the force and motion we expect from them and it leads to aches, pains and injuries.

https://chiro.org/LINKS/FULL/Posture-and-Your-Health.pdf

So, how can you improve your posture?

• Ensure that when you are sitting and standing, your shoulders are rounded backwards, trying to put your shoulder blades in your back pockets
• Do chin Tucks, which pulls the back of your directly back behind you, so it glides posteriorly so your ears are directly above your shoulders
• Ensure your workstation is ergonomically correct – screen is at eye level straight ahead, keyboard is comfortably in front of you, a little higher than your lap and your chair is the right height, so your feet can rest comfortably on the floor.

Keep in mind, that our bodies are not designed to sit for most of the day, so be sure to move around as much as you can.   And try using a balance ball to sit on instead of a chair.  Our society and lifestyles promote poor posture (text neck/carrying heavy bags/purses on one shoulder only/imperfect angles at our workstations, etc.)  Poor posture is likely in the cards for each of us unless you do something about it.  My advice to you is to keep moving as much as you can, exercise regularly and see a chiropractor to remove the physical stress poor posture puts on your body.

https://ij6.2a0.myftpupload.com

https://www.facebook.com/WilkeChiro

Facebook:  Wilke Chiropractic