Your posture is as important as your shape

Technology is killing our posture. If you want to have fun, keep your phone in your pocket while walking in a crowded street (because it’s dangerous), stop and take a minute to look at the people go. Most if not all are looking at their phone, especially those waiting for the bus or for the light change on the corner of the street. It has become an alienation. The moment you stop, you instantly take out your phone and browse social media. No one wants to miss those beast mode posts, because you know, if they don’t post it, it doesn’t count and never happened.

But seriously, if you look at your posture while you browse your phone or tablet while standing up or better yet, sitting down, your posture is at its worst. Your neck supports your head, which weighs about 8-10 pounds. For each degree it bends forward, add another 2-3 pounds pressing on your C4-C5 cervical.

It doesn’t stop there. For each degree your head lean forward, your lower back compensates. For each degree your back compensates, you add unnecessary pressure on your knees and so on. No one feels it. Not in a week or 2, but after a few months, it can have an impact on your joints, especially the neck and lower back.

Besides letting go of the techs or just being aware of your posture every single minute of the day, there are a few exercises you can do to help alleviate the tension on the neck. The swiss ball neck support, where you put a swiss ball on the wall and while standing up straight with your head holding the ball against the wall, you do 8 isometric pushes of 4 seconds against the ball, always keeping your head straight and looking forward. Do 3 sets every other day.

One last useful tip would be to add seated rows to the neck with the rope on the seated row pulley and external rotations with dumbbells to help keep the shoulders back. No one wants to look like the hunchback of Notre dame so keep training the scapular chain to keep your head up!

Coach Eric