If you’re sitting here reading this blog, there’s already a good chance that your posture isn’t where it should be and you might not even realize it. Bad posture is something that transcends all demographics, afflicting people from all walks of life on a daily basis.
Posture isn’t just something the chiropractor talks about to the BINGO crowd. Posture is something that applies to everyone at every age. From birth to death, posture is one of the most important components to a healthy life and it should never ever be glanced over.
Look at it this way. Your posture is like the window into your spine. It is a measure of the balance of your spinal column, which is the core of your body. Looking from the front, your spine should have perfect vertical alignment. From the side, your spine should have three naturally flowing curves, all helping to support the weight of your body and your head.
In this balanced, symmetrical position, your head sits on top of your spine in which your spine houses the spinal cord, a vital nerve tract extending from your brain that acts as an intelligence line for your whole body. The proper function of this cord is vital to excellent health, vigor, and performance.
Let’s talk about the core for a little bit. Your core is so much more than just your abs. Your core is a complex series of muscles, extending far beyond your belly, including everything besides your arms and legs. It is incorporated in almost every movement of the human body.
Your core most often acts as a stabilizer and force transfer center rather than a prime mover. Yet consistently people focus on training their core as a prime mover and in isolation. This would be doing crunches or back extensions versus functional movements like deadlifts, overhead squats, and pushups, among many other functional closed chain exercises.
And by incorrectly training (and also by practicing poor posture when you sit, stand, sleep) you are not only missing out on a major function of the core, but you are also missing out on better strength gains, more efficient movement, and longevity of your spine.
Efficient movement = good posture and good posture = efficient movement
Good posture is an indication of poise and consequently poor posture is a sign of lost poise. A poised athlete will almost always move freely with minimal effort and is not pulled out of shape or contorted in the way they move by excessive muscle tension or structure restriction. The athlete without poise will use inappropriate muscle action in their given sport and allows the risk of injury to enter at an extremely high probability.
In order to start repairing the damage that has already been done, there needs to be a combination of corrective exercise and other techniques to open up and release the neck, hips, and spine.
Through a specialized training program focusing on posture you will be able to activate other muscles and surrounding tendons and ligaments so you can return to a balanced state. The best routines and truthfully the only programs to safely and properly cure your posture while building your core strength can be found here: www.gethealthyhips.com and www.stopdoingsitups.com
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To learn more about Coach Brian and his method of functional performance training, please visit his website www.optimaxperformance.com or email him directly at Brian@optimaxperformance.com.
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