In praise of: good posture

I am having *terrible* troubles with a bad left trap muscle... my shoulder and shoulderblade are always in pain and sometimes it radiates down to my elbow. Keeps making me paranoid that its my heart and not a muscular thing :(

I have very poor posture, but I cant conciously sit or stand straight all the time :/ Its so hard! How do you do it?

Anyone got any more tips on correcting posture?

Stand with feet comfortably apart, knees slightly bent (ie not visibly bent but NOT locked). Think of yourself as a puppet with a central string tied to your pelvis and running up your back, neck, and out the top of your head. Imagine the string is pulled from above, bringing everything into line and giving a sense of lift from the top. Engage the abs, not to "suck in" but to give support to the lower back (you should be able to feel some relief in the lower back muscles when you do this). Take a deep breath to the chest and lift the ribcage UP instead of OUT -- it may still move out a little but your focus s/b "up".

Shoulders should be back, but not forcefully -- think a little bit back but concentrate on pushing them *down*, getting them further from your ears. When we slump at desks or when we're nervous/tensed for some kind of defensive action, we tend to let shoulders creep up around our necks, a posture that harbors a lot of muscle tension in neck & spine. When you push your shoulders down you can FEEL the other groups relaxing & lengthening in response. Neck should be straight but relaxed, head should "float" on top kind of like a bobble-head doll.

Start from a standing position, then after a little practice sit on a kitchen chair and figure it out from a sitting position. Overall effect concentrates effort in the muscles of your torso and gets it off the joints & spine. Your abs & the muscles across ribs & around the sides of torso will actually be working harder so it might not feel like the most "comfortable" position at first, but try to maintain for increasing periods -- 5 or 10 mins at first while you're home putzing around, then for the time it takes to check email or sit through a meeting.

You really should see a practitioner for anything more involved, or for guidance in staying "centered" while moving, bending over, walking, etc. I find that sit-ups & body stretches help a huge amount, but ask your doc/therapist/trainer to recommend something, esp if you have back problems. All that stuff above works for me but IANAD so of course go slowly & pay attention to what you feel in the process.

-- Trayce (spamspanke...), September 24th, 2005.

I think the key is not to focus on straightening your spine, but focus on the supportive muscles instead, and on having your head up. But getting some exercise is good too, especially stretching and exercise for the lower back and abs. Also just a lot of walking is good.

i was given this advice by a Pakistani database programmer: put both of your feet flat on the floor and point them towards what you're looking at.

So far: acupuncture, naturopathic anti-inflammatories, that scrapy thing they do with that bit of plastic and some technique which involves poking me really really hard.

I really must give that yoga a go. There must be plenty of sites that can teach me yoga for free.

I did this a few months ago too. At least it reminds me when I'm slouching.

There are lots of places that teach yoga for not very much at all - even in a small country town in New Zealand I can think of four. it makes a big difference having an instructor who can watch you and say what you are doing wrong. This is important.

is it common to burp a lot as your posture changes?

Everyone, go out and get a copy of Teach Yourself Alexander Technique by Richard Craze. It's only a short introduction to the topic and I didn't even get to the end of it (got a bit too indepth) but just reading the first few chapters a couple of months ago and I've subconsciously changed the way I sit, stand and walk and my posture is all the better for it.

help me
my posture is awful and i need to change it OR ELSE. according to my physical therapist

sit up straight

(stop sitting up gay)

the problem is that good posture feels wierd and uncomfortable to me and i can't even tell when i am doing it right

yoga or tai chi maybe or something similar that might appeal to you? much of bad posture is about muscles that are chronically tensed, and other muscles that aren't holding up their end in turn, and a resulting mess of a bad feedback loop between neck, shoulders, hips, all the way down to your connection to the ground. if you do something on a regular basis which encourages the muscles to relax and your spine to straighten up, etc, then posture improves as a matter of course.

also, some serious massage, like even rolfing or something would probably help

yeah i have like a million trigger points and headaches and arm numbness and shit. it is bad :(

i don't really like doing yoga :/

don't listen to dell, try eating more brunch.

l, let's do mini yoga lesson for comfortable but good posture this wkend! it will not suck! i have been doing yoga every morning last wk and this wk! my posture is ok most of the time but sometimes ya gotta slouch
xposts

mm brunch

i have good posture when standing or playing drums but terrible, terrible posture in my chair at work.

Take Rohlfing or Alexander, then. Or Pilates. Srsly you have to learn to stack up your skeletal parts in the right alignment, and only muscle tension holds them there. u_u

i am currently doing PT twice a week and seeing a chiropractor and it is getting worse if anything.

maybe rrrob! but brunch, definitely (depending when i get back on sunday)

i've gotten better at noticing when i'm slouching. i think people with good posture are taken more seriously/given more respect. it shows that you carry yourself with dignity and aren't just some loser schmo.

the problem is that good posture feels wierd and uncomfortable to me and i can't even tell when i am doing it right

that's like me-- i have the worst posture ever, historically speaking, like going back to when i was a kid (which i suppose is not uncommon), but if i keep up with doing tai chi or whatever, then i look in the mirror after even just a few days and i suddenly appear to be a couple inches taller, shoulders no longer hunched over, etc...plus it's just easier to get through the day b/c i am no longer fighting against gravity. your body wants to be your friend and to be lined up in a certain way, but a lot of people in this culture are literally bent out of shape by the time they are twelve yrs old or something

i have the exact same posture as my mother. sometimes i wish i was one of those kids forced into ballet lessons.

take ba gua. it's what they teach the police in hong kong. you will be able to kill people with a wave of your hand, plus you will have awesome posture

i just tried to think about keeping my head above my shoulders above my hips and that seemed to help, and after a while became natural. sitting is another story.

or take ayahuasca. contemp western civ has fucked us all up

Maybe you could start taking beginner's dance lessons?

I mean I do love the idea of a deadly bell labs with fists of fury but just in case.

bell_labs should be forced to stand up straight against the wall, legs parallel, for 5 hours per day. if she falters, beaten.

see that is what my pt said to do gff but every time i think i am doing it i am doing it wrong.

my pt said to do the balancing a book on my head and walking with it. ugh no dance lessons i am really, really bad at that stuff.

i'm a broken record, but maybe try some internal martial art thing, seriously. yoga is not for me either, but i like tai chi b/c you are standing and moving the whole time, and it's uncool; there is no trendy fashionable or "spiritual" or pseudo-spriritual baggage associated with it, so you do not have to worry about some sweaty earnest soul-patched guy vibing you in class or any other such bullshit

it's the only thing that consistently helps me to feel human and comfortable in my own skin (er, excepting alcohol, dancing, sex, music...)

or go have a reichian or neo-reichian or some such therapist brutalize you, maybe

fuck balancing a book on yr head, but there is no reason to go through life feeling gblahg as far as that goes. find something that appeals to you. there are a ton of options

become a model

I hear it's great for your self-image.

haha a model

what would a neo-reichian do? i've been in an orgone accumulator and it just made me kinda dizzy

I have so much sympathy for you, bell. I'm sort of in the same boat. Have been seeing a chiropractor three times a week for the last month with few results and am about to start physical therapy, too. Goddamn right shoulder.

ok if you do pt, i would suggest NOT doing the electro-stim. it made me go into convulsions last week. or if you do it have them start on a really low level.

maybe a general strength workout would help? situps and all that. getting your core (or trunk or whatever the f fitness ppl call it) strengthened up a little would give you more posturizing material to work with maybe

Shit, I'll try anything.

i thought you joined a gym, jmc?

what is pt?? and are chiropractors a scam y/n? id like to go to one if they can pop my back in really satisfying ways, i think that alone would be worth it

re posture & back both, i always find pushups seem to help

before i do strengthening like that i need to be in less immediate pain :/ blahhh

what would a neo-reichian do? i've been in an orgone accumulator and it just made me kinda dizzy

i think if they are neo- they are maybe not so down w/the accumulators, but i could be wrong. basically, they would be working on psycho-physical stuff...i dunno, i think that developments in somatic psychology that have evolved over the last couple of decades would probably be more helpful

than neo-reichians, that is. i dunno, research. you live in the big citay, right? there are so many options out there to help you with this shit

yeah but like 75% is bullshit or creepy and everything is expensive and i don't have $90 to blow every week on something that might not work at all.

stop going to the chiropractor and take MARCHING BAND lessons!!!

I think going to physical therapy AND a chiropractor would be contra-indicated for helping anything

I bet you could make $$$ in nyc or la giving marching band lessons in the park actually
too bad I have a real job that pays already

the chiropractor and physical therapist both work together, and are covered by one insurance copay! tbh i think the chiropractor is a little creepy.

Haha I thought I was done with marching band (unfort, b/c I loved it) but now I have to be in parades an' shit and it comes in surprisingly handy.

but does he pop yr back in really satisfying ways, is the question

id like to go to one if they can pop my back in really satisfying ways, i think that alone would be worth it

I totally thought it would be like that, and it's really not. I like my chiropractor, but I never really feel like she does all that much when I see her. And I'm paying out of pocket, so even though she says I still need to come in once a week, I'm kind of deciding to focus on physical therapy for now. They're part of the same office.

And no, I haven't joined a gym, Jordan. I was going to start doing that once I stopped going to the chiropractor!

lol of course tombot was in the marching band

are chiropractors a scam y/n?

in my experience no, but i've probably just had good chiropractors.

deez it is not that satisfying. the cracking sounds like it should do something, but doesn't really make it feel better.

my little sister just started going to a chriopractor & my mom (who totally trusts in basically any alternative therapy ever brought to her attention) said he wants to see her 3 times a week or something. pretty sure this fact alone wd make him one of the 'bad chiropractors'.

that said any time my back has audibly cracked ive felt a release of pressure so satisfying that just the thought of the crunching thing ive heard chiros can do to yr spine actually makes me kinda woozy

my neck cracks like every 10 minutes so i guess it's kind of normal for me (i know that seems excessive but as far as i can tell it doesn't really indicate anything bad?)

yeah but like 75% is bullshit or creepy and everything is expensive and i don't have $90 to blow every week on something that might not work at all.

investigate, there are ways. seriously

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/42328000/gif/_42328901_seating_pos3_416.gif

my posture's been so bad for years that I'm dealing with back soreness (intermittent) for the first time in my life. hell, the one time last year I stood in line 2 hours and early voted for Obama, the standing got to me so bad that I lost feeling temporarily in my upper arm and my back felt like it had been stepped on several times.

shoulda listened to my mother (and teachers)

N, do you see an osteopath?