Perfect posture is the foundation of all exercise and movement. It will pay dividends throughout your life. This comprehensive guide is dedicated to helping you achieve that perfect posture. These guidelines are a part of my Health Guides series.
1. Perfect Posture
Text neck can cause many problems, including neck, back and shoulder pain. It can eventually become kyphosis and, at it’s worse, lead to vertebral compression fractures.
Why You Need a Perfect Posture
An article on posture in The Washington Post dated November of 2014 had a great illustration in terms of the effect on the spine of the head posture.
Our head — which is a lovely 10 to 11 pounds, sits where it should, right over the spine — then it’s a great weight-bearing device.
One of my clients, who recently came back from India, said so eloquently: “Wow, I thought I had good posture, until I saw those women carrying my pack on their head. I didn’t realize what good posture was all about.”
The article in the Washington Post states that when the head is sitting right over the spine, the weight is distributed evenly. But when you are stooped forward 15 degrees, that weight starts to increase significantly to the point that it might weigh about 27 pounds! That is a lot of pressure on your spinal column.
By the time you are leaning forward at 60 degrees — which is not uncommon when people are texting, looking at their phone, or reading from their phone — then the weight of the head starts to feel more like 60 pounds on the spine! That is dangerously high.
Put that on top of a spine that might already be forward, and the cumulative effects throughout the day on the spine is huge, both on the muscles, on inappropriate weight-bearing through the bone, on the joints, and on so many things.
Guide to Perfect Posture
This guide to perfect posture takes you through the importance of head posture, but also guides you through alignment of your head when you’re doing exercises, when you’re working on core control, and daily activities.
I hope that you find this guide to perfect posture helpful and I encourage you to hold your head taller and be a little bit more aware of your posture throughout the day. Thanks for tuning in.
How to Have a Perfect Posture
Posture is the foundation of all movement and exercise. This is why I developed the online course, Perfect Posture in 30 Days.
Perfect Posture
A perfect posture has many benefits.
- Reduces your risk of back, neck and shoulder pain.
- Improves balance and the reduces the chance of a fall.
- Promotes a positive self-image.
Posture and Osteoporosis
Good postural alignment is especially important for individuals with osteoporosis and low bone density.
Simple movements you do everyday can lead to small fractures to the spine.
For example, poor postural alignment when you cough, sneeze, or reach for something can cause micro trauma to the spinal column. Over time, these micro traumas can add up and eventually lead to vertebral compression fractures.
A poor posture contributes to balance issues. As a result, individuals with osteoporosis and low bone density are at risk of a macro trauma to the spine because of balance problems.
The Source of Poor Posture
Why don’t more of us have a perfect posture? Because many of the activities we do in today’s modern world involve forward flexion.
Activities such as reading in bed, using a mobile phone, gaming, texting, sitting for hours hunched over a laptop computer, knitting, crocheting, and many more encourage forward flexion.
Many people take this forward movement into their exercise and leisure activities. Unfortunately, this reinforces poor postural alignment.
Unless we make adjustments to our environment or correct our posture, over time we weaken and stretch certain muscles and tighten other muscles. This muscular imbalance leads to poor postural alignment.
We need to fix this imbalance, modify our movements so that we can get the posture we want.
How to Achieve a Perfect Posture
Many of us do not know how to get and keep a perfect posture. To have a good posture we need to learn the fundamentals of good posture, know what exercises promote postural alignment, and how to bring good posture into our day to day activities.
This is why I created Perfect Posture in 30 Days. This course addresses each of these areas and shows you how to develop a perfect posture, how to modify your daily activities, and how to make your perfect posture a permanent part of your life.
Perfect Posture in 30 Days will improve your posture, boost your confidence, and allow you to live a pain free life.
2. Perfect Posture Resources
Here are the important articles on perfect posture you should read. I have them organize by topic category.
2.1 The Osteoporosis Posture
The osteoporosis posture is more accurately known as the kyphotic posture or dowager’s hump. This flexed posture commonly associated with osteoporosis in older individuals.
In this video blog, I describe, in detail, what happens to your spinal or vertebral structure when you regularly have a poor posture or are in flexion, how compression fractures happen, and throw some light on bone density. I also answer a client’s question about how many exercises does she need to do to correct her postural alignment. Are more posture exercises better than less?
2.2 Recommendations for Posture Aid
Should you use a posture aid for posture correction or should you look at other options? I explore this topic in the following blog:
2.3 Dowager’s Hump
I have written a comprehensive blog post on Dowager’s Hump.
2.4 What Causes Shoulder Blade Pain
Shoulder blade pain is more common than you think. Unfortunately, it can keep you from achieving perfect posture, following your osteoporosis exercise program and participating in the activities you love. Read this post on how to fix your shoulder blade pain:
2.5 How to Fix Rounded Shoulders
I see many patients with rounded shoulders and work with them on strategies to fix this condition. Rounded shoulders can develop into hyper kyphosis and Dowager’s Hump, and lead to compression fractures and shoulder blade pain. Read this post on how to fix rounded shoulders.
2.6 Minimalist Walking Shoes and Strong Feet
Strong feet are essential to perfect posture, in fact your good posture likely starts from your feet. In this post I describe how minimalist walking shoes can be the path to strong feet.
2.7 Proper Walking Form and Correct Walking Posture
In this blog post and video, I describe the four foundation principles of proper walking form and discuss correct walking posture.
3. Postural Alignment
A good posture requires that you be mindful of your alignment during all of your daily activities. It requires commitment and attention. Posture is an active process.
3.1 Daily Slumping Is the Enemy of Postural Alignment
I find that most people do not have a good posture because they are not encouraged to sit up right, the seats they sit in are too soft or deep, or they use their laptops in bed. Today’s lifestyle can obstruct good alignment.
Daily slumping makes it feels strenuous when you actively try to improve your posture. You have to actively work to improve your alignment.
3.2 Postural Alignment Has Many Benefits
But I find that when clients finally achieve good alignment, they feel much stronger and confident. And maintaining it is actually very easy.
Perfect posture has many benefits and is essential when you exercise.
3.3 Postural Alignment is an Active Process
Hi, I’m Margaret Martin at MelioGuide, and today I’m going to share with you a topic that’s very important to my heart and to my spine, and that’s postural alignment.
A lot of my clients come in and as soon as they walk in the door, I can tell they’re just standing a little bit taller. They often will tell me that they hear my voice on their shoulder all time. I wish my kids would tell me the same thing.
But one of my clients came in and it was like a revelation and she said, “Margaret you mean posture is an active process?”
And I was like, “Yes!”
So often I guess I just assume people realize that maintaining a perfect posture is an active process.
3.4 The Problem with Posture Today
But in this day and age people aren’t encouraged to sit up tall. They’re sitting slouched on soft surfaces. Everything’s too deep. Everything’s too soft.
My kids were home for Christmas. I was blown away how much time they spend in their bed watching entertainment on their laptop. So much of their time was in a reclined or semi-reclined position.
Where’s all that work for the postural muscles? It’s just not happening today.
3.5 Postural Alignment Requires Some Effort
That means, when we do stand up tall, it’s actually feels like even more effort.
But we should be actively engaging our postural muscles throughout the day. Sitting on the edges of chairs, standing tall.
And it’s so very important when we’re doing weights that we’re keeping our posture in its very best position, because you don’t want to be training yourself to be slouching even more.
You want to be training yourself and lifting yourself up and against the weight that you’re holding.
And so, is posture an active process? Absolutely. And the more you do it, the more comfortable you’re going to feel doing it.
So often when my clients that have come to me, and I can’t help it, but when they’re sitting in front of me and they have poor posture, that’s all I see over and over again. But when they come back and I don’t even think about their posture, I know they’re sitting tall.
3.6 When Perfect Postural Alignment Feels Normal
They will say to me, generally at the three month mark, that sitting and standing tall is actually starting to feel normal. That slouching starts to not feel as comfortable.
So be patient with yourself, but persist at optimizing your alignment so that you can then feel like this active process of posture becomes effortless and just a comfortable way of being.
Know that you’re going to be supporting your bones in their very best alignment so that they can keep supporting you for the rest of our life.
4. Posture Alignment Therapy
I offer clients and patients a custom Posture Alignment Therapy program where they have the opportunity to work with me and improve their postural alignment.
5. Posture and Exercise
In the video on posture and exercise, I initially discuss that you need proper alignment when you do your exercises and that the purpose of the postural exercises is to stretch and strengthen the muscles that regain and maintain proper alignment.
Ken, one of my clients, then provides his personal experience: how you can hurt yourself if you do not execute your movements and exercises with proper posture.
Ken states that form is important. He used to do weights for strength training and swim for cardiovascular.
Like many people he took posture for granted. Most of the activities of everyday life, such as sitting at your computer, bring us into forward positions. If you are not meticulous about your alignment throughout the day, then gravity will gradually pull your head forward – and soon your spine will follow.
This flexion of the spine (reflected in a slouched posture) increases your risk of a vertebral fracture.
Once he came to realize its importance in everything he did — his activities of daily living and his exercise activities — he worked on exercises to improve his posture and to maintain good posture.
6. Spinal Stretch Exercise for Perfect Posture
Here is a spine exercise for good posture I did a number of years ago, the Spinal Stretch Posture exercise.
How to Have a Perfect Posture
Posture is the foundation of all movement and exercise. This is why I developed the online course, Perfect Posture in 30 Days.
Perfect Posture
A perfect posture has many benefits.
- Reduces your risk of back, neck and shoulder pain.
- Improves balance and the reduces the chance of a fall.
- Promotes a positive self-image.
Posture and Osteoporosis
Good postural alignment is especially important for individuals with osteoporosis and low bone density.
Simple movements you do everyday can lead to small fractures to the spine.
For example, poor postural alignment when you cough, sneeze, or reach for something can cause micro trauma to the spinal column. Over time, these micro traumas can add up and eventually lead to vertebral compression fractures.
A poor posture contributes to balance issues. As a result, individuals with osteoporosis and low bone density are at risk of a macro trauma to the spine because of balance problems.
The Source of Poor Posture
Why don’t more of us have a perfect posture? Because many of the activities we do in today’s modern world involve forward flexion.
Activities such as reading in bed, using a mobile phone, gaming, texting, sitting for hours hunched over a laptop computer, knitting, crocheting, and many more encourage forward flexion.
Many people take this forward movement into their exercise and leisure activities. Unfortunately, this reinforces poor postural alignment.
Unless we make adjustments to our environment or correct our posture, over time we weaken and stretch certain muscles and tighten other muscles. This muscular imbalance leads to poor postural alignment.
We need to fix this imbalance, modify our movements so that we can get the posture we want.
How to Achieve a Perfect Posture
Many of us do not know how to get and keep a perfect posture. To have a good posture we need to learn the fundamentals of good posture, know what exercises promote postural alignment, and how to bring good posture into our day to day activities.
This is why I created Perfect Posture in 30 Days. This course addresses each of these areas and shows you how to develop a perfect posture, how to modify your daily activities, and how to make your perfect posture a permanent part of your life.
Perfect Posture in 30 Days will improve your posture, boost your confidence, and allow you to live a pain free life.
7. Guide to Perfect Posture
Modern life has been good to many of us. Smartphones and computers give us immediate access to information, resources, and friends. However, these same products often cause us to go into forward positions that can lead to poor posture. Many activities of daily living, when not done with good form, also cause bad alignment. That is why I prepared this guide to perfect posture.
7.1 Back Pain and Vertebral Fractures
Poor posture can lead to low back pain. For people with osteoporosis, osteopenia, and low bone density, flexion of the spine increases the risk of vertebral fracture.
7.2 How to Achieve Your Perfect Posture
Postural exercises are a foundational component all of my books, Exercise for Better Bones, Strengthen Your Core, and Yoga for Better Bones.
In earlier blogs, I have covered the Reverse Fly Exercise and modifications to help you improve your posture. And my activities of daily living articles on raking leaves, shovelling, lifting heavy objects, mowing your lawn, and weeding your garden all cover good posture, good alignment and good form.
I will add more resources and information on perfect posture in the future. Stay tuned and thanks for following.