Posture should be of huge importance to everyone. Not only does good posture give you the ability to really show off your body, it also helps to prevent chronic long-term injury to your body.
A particularly prevalent result of poor posture in women is dowager’s hump. That well-recognised slouch where the lumbar spine curves in and the thoracic spine folds over. For an excellent image see the article by John Izzo which highlights some ways in which personal trainers can help clients address this problem.
Over the years I’ve used various techniques to try to prevent lasting damage to my posture.
Dance
Up to the age of 11 I did a lot of dancing. However, if you want to turn to dance for postural improvement you should also be aware of the hazards. A study by Twitchett, Koutedakis and Wyon pointed out some problems that female classical dancers suffer from. Especially since they often elect to avoid strength training:
- limited aerobic fitness despite needing a strong aerobic foundation;
- weaknesses in the upper body, torso, hamstrings and quadriceps (though incredibly good hip mobility, which is something most of the rest of us suffer from); and
- low body weight and low body fat to meet aesthetic demands, often met through low caloric intakes due to insufficient energy expenditure which in turn can increase the risk of injury (poor nutrient balance etc).
Yoga
When we moved and I had to stop dancing I replaced this with yoga. Knowing what I now know I would no longer do the more “flexible” yoga poses, but some of the postures helped me reverse damage being done by the numerous hours spent sat at a desk studying.
Use of selective yoga postures is a good approach to both relaxation and posture assistance.
Posture-specific treatment
I also play violin. The posture of many violinists is almost guaranteed to create injury. It can be avoided but for violinists like me, who start learning at a very young age (I started when I was four), you contort your body to imitate those you see. Very few people are lucky enough to have a teacher who corrects the postural problems before they are ingrained and injuries like tendonitis and misalignment of the spine are subsequently common amongst young violinists.
In my mid-teens I had to stop playing for 3 months due to twist in my spine that caused the bones in my lower arm to be pushed out of position and resulted in a form of mild tendonitis. This was my introduction to how every part of the body is interconnected and it was resolved with an intensive course of treatment and exercises from a musician-specialist chiropractor and applied kinesiologist.
I learned that if you want effective treatment you need to see someone who understands the causes and Elizabeth Andrews, as a former professional viola-player, perfectly understood the postural problems of playing a stringed instrument
Alexander Technique
As a preventative measure, many musicians turn to Alexander Technique.
F.M. Alexander was an actor whose career was temporarily halted when he suffered from severe voice-loss whenever on stage. After studying the changes to his posture when performing he found that his performance posture created tension in his neck and body so he found ways to change the ingrained postural and movement habits. By applying the technique people learn through simple and practical measures to improve their movements, balance, support and coordination and they also learn to be in communication with their bodies.
For a treasure trove of information about the Alexander Technique I recommend watching and reading some of the links on the Complete Guide to the Alexander Technique.
Relearning a hard lesson
Once I left school this attention to my posture mostly died away so that when I started lifting a few years ago I was a mess. I needed to act to undo years of desk-job damage.
Introducing assistance exercises
I’ve written before about using rolling and mobility drills to help undo postural problems. There are also some key assistance exercises that can be built into workouts which will not only build strength but will also improve posture.
In the last few weeks I’ve see particularly good results from the Romanian Deadlift, which has provided me with more hip mobility than ever before. So much so that this has become a permanent exercise in my workouts as long as I continue to do a desk job and spend hours of every day sat down.
In addition, bent over rows have given me excellent improvement in my shoulder posture. I’ve noticed that my shoulders naturally sit further back and my lats have been more dominant which has helped me control the dominant traps which previously caused me to suffer from hunched shoulders after long hours at work.
Keeping on the right track
Poor posture is something I will always try to keep a wary eye out for now. I’ve addressed some of the worst problems from my desk job, but I’ll need to keep checking that other elements of my posture are not slipping.
What postural problems do you suffer from and how have you addressed them?
Related posts:
No Comments so far ↓
There are no comments yet...Kick things off by filling out the form below.