Today I want to go over how posture good and bad affects your health and happiness.
Most of us work sitting down for hours at a time each day, or we drive a lot, using airways and buses and trains to get around. This can lead to poor posture.
Good posture is where your head is resting comfortably on your shoulders, which means your ears are in line with your shoulders. Your chest should be somewhat high and your shoulders back. None of this should be forced.
What happens is that we round forward with our shoulders. Also gravity pulls our shoulders forward which leads to a lot of pressure on your upper back.
Your body’s muscles are very adaptable and dynamic. When your muscles are in a shortened position they tend to tighten up, and when they lengthen they tend to get weak. What happens with poor posture of your upper back and shoulders is that your shoulders round forward and this causes a lot of tightness to your Pecs (chest muscles), and your sub-scapular muscles, (one of your rotator cuff muscles which rounds from the back to the front under your arm). All these muscles get tight.
This causes the muscles in your upper back such as the rhomboid between the shoulder blades and the trapezius (muscles in shoulder and neck) to get weak because they get stretched.
Tips:
- Bring your back to a wall and extend your arms and hands onto the wall with your hands touching the wall if possible and facing outwards. Now slowly move your hands while touching the wall, up the wall surface until you feel discomfort. Then move them back down. repeat this 6 to 10 times a few times a day.
- Come to Get Back Health Chiropractic and Wellness Clinic this week and get your spine aligned. This will help with posture and put your body’s energy at your disposal.
Yours in Health John Keane Spinologist