In this part of your Posture Series journey, we have to talk about things that you need to fix. What is posture? Posture is the fully relaxed standing or sitting position when you are relying on Bracing muscles completely. When in this position, Bracing muscles are strengthened and by practicing
Posture has been a topic for ages. It conveys confidence and health. It speaks to our youthfulness and capabilities. It mirrors our sense of being and reveals our fatigue. It defines you before you are known and refines impressions and unrealized biases. Posture is powerful in many spoken and unspoken
There are three major flaws in your posture that cannot be overlooked. When you have them, you are at negative one. Not at the beginning of your posture journey, you are… not yet even ready to begin. You have to fix these things before you can even begin. What brings
Chronic back pain patients often tell me they want to work on their posture. They say it in the same way someone says they want to lose 10 pounds. Off-handed and nonchalant, like someone with good intentions who forgets to floss. They want to sit up straighter, but then
Look what simple posture does to your appearance! (It’s not the glasses that hid Superman As a sports medicine and pain specialist who focuses on the neck, shoulder, and back issues, posture has been an essential part of my practice. In my office, our evaluation of posture plays an
Our spines aren’t designed to live as we today do. Our early ancestors sprinted barefoot across the savanna, spear in hand, the picture of perfect ergonomic position. In contrast, today we sit much of the work day at a desk, hunched over computers and phones. However, the evidence is clear:
There is a difference between a teenager slouching and an adult slouching. It is gratifying, as a nagger [a skill learned from my mother] to constantly bug a teenager about slouching and watch them follow your advice and obtain great posture. Gone is the insecure 16 year old and in
In this series, we’re going deep into the theory of bracing muscles and their role in body stabilization, and in doing so we’ve departed from the received wisdom of the scientific community, which has a poor (though developing) understanding of back pain. I wrote my book, UPRISE, to push
A recent guideline issued by the American College of Physicians discussing low back pain, and the use of opioids and their lack of effectiveness in treatment, has brought a focus on yoga as the first listed treatment alternative to opioids, and often the only one mentioned in media coverage of
In my preceeding column in this series, we discussed the gap between the way we’ve learned to move throughout our lives and the ability of our bracing muscles to stabilize us enough to execute those movements. As we grow, stability leads to coordination. If we get injured or become sedentary, however,