Stand Up Straight!

Hello, everyone! I just wanted to post a quick one today about posture. It's one of those things that many people just don't think about. They should. It's extremely important, especially when you consider the sitting that most of us do for a good portion of the day. Tight hip flexors, jacked up shoulders, etc. People ask about things they can do to help their bad backs and tight shoulders and there are many things that they can and should do. Here's the thing, though, all of the stuff that trainers or doctors or physical therapists tell everyone to do leads to one place: Better Posture.

The spine has natural curves in the thoracic and lumbar areas that are there to spread out the pressure that the spine is under. When one curve gets too small or big it puts more pressure on other areas and that's when problems occur.

It can sometimes take a while to notice, but the back is a funny thing. We've all heard stories about people throwing out their backs picking up a pen. That didn't happen because of the pen, it happened because of the cumulative result of a lot of small things that turned into one big thing when someone bent over the wrong way and happened to be picking up a pen.

Dr. Stuart McGill, who is considered one of the world's leading authorities on back problems, has found through his research that, mainly, two kinds of loads lead to back injuries. Very heavy and very light. Why? Heavy we can figure out. (If you can't, drop me a line.) Light, though, doesn't make much sense. Or does it? We are used to the thought of injuries occuring because of one event. An anvil fell on our head. We tried to bench 350 lbs. and dropped the bar on our chest. That sort of thing. Many back injuries, though, occur because of the cumulative result of a lot of small things that turned into one big thing. Just like we talked about with the notorious pen incident. What is a big reason for a lot of small spinal issues? You got it! Posture!

Work on that and many other things will fall into place. Here is a link to an outstanding article on how to determine the quality of your posture and how to fix the problems you may have.

I know that this brings you back to those horrible memories of your third grade teacher yelling at you, but in this case she was right. This and the fact that your hair was a mess! Don't you have any respect for yourself?

Mitchell Rothbardt

www.mitchrothbardttraining.com

(coming soon)