Have your parents ever told you to stand up straight? It’s actually really solid advice. There is a growing amount of younger (and older) people who have terrible posture. I’m actually going to blame technology for it. Look around you. Everyone has a phone attached to their person and everyone of those people are looking down to view it. Then you have the gaming community, the growing number of people who are watching tv hunched over instead of playing outside, doing chores or pretty much anything! People are getting lazier (is that a word?!). Terrible posture will lead to pain. Not only will it cause upper back pain, it can also lead to neck and low back pain, text neck being one of the new diagnosis today. Once you have established a “bad” posture lifestyle, it is really hard to stand up straight. The muscles that have learned to lean forward now have to be stretched to stand up straight and get fatigued very quickly!

So what do you need to do about bad posture? For one watch how you are standing, sitting, driving, sleeping. All the things! You can do exercises to strengthen your back and in turn create better posture. You can also grab a product like Posture Medic. It will help you stretch, strengthen and stabilize your upper back. So lets go through some of the things you can do with this product. (Which I carry at my office.)

Stretch

Chest stretch

1. Begin with arms straight up and your palms facing out. Pull hands slightly apart.
2. Pull arms down and back until arms are level with your shoulders and both elbows are in line with your body

Lat stretch

1. Begin with both arms directly over your head with palms facing out.
2. Slowly lean to one side until you feel the stretch. Come back to the center and repeat on the other side.

Shoulder stretch

1. Begin with palms facing out and directly behind your hips.
2. Slowly raise your hands towards the ceiling while pushing your shoulders back.
   *Don’t lean forward

Strengthen

Rear Delt Fly

1. Begin with your arm straight in front of your chest, holding your PostureMedic with your palms facing in.
2. Slowly squeeze your shoulder blades together and keep your arms straight. Extend arms directly to your side.
3. Slowly bring your arms back to starting position. Keeping resistance.

External Rotation

1. Being with arms at a 90 degree angle directly to your side with palms facing in.
2. Keeping elbows tucked, slowly squeeze your shoulder blades together and rotate your hands out.

Rotator Cuff High 5

1. Begin with your arm in a 90 degree angle directly at your side with elbow parallel to you shoulder and hand directly above elbow. Keep your other hand on your opposite hip.
2. Slowly rotate your palm down towards the floor until your forearm is parallel to the floor. While squeezing your shoulder blades back and down, return hand to starting position.

Stabilize

Wear your brace in 15 minute intervals 2-3 times a day. You can graduate to longer periods of time as you improve and strengthen your muscles. Remember wearing a brace won’t fix your posture, but with time, doing your stretches and exercises you can gain better posture!

Improving your posture

-Can help increase blood flow to the heart
-Reduce blood pressure and increase circulation
-Improve breathing and diaphragm function
-Increase range of motion
-Reduce the risk of osteoporosis and other types of joint damage
-Promote proper growth in children
-Reduce fatigue and positively impact sleep

Chiropractic

Chiropractic care looks at the body as a whole, defines what the root cause of your pain is and helps correct it over a period of time. These periods of time can take days, weeks, or months. It will all depend on what your goals are, if you are dedicated to changing habits that got you in pain in the first place, if you want maintenance care after the pain and strengthening phase is over and if you are wanting to take a new approach to helping your body heal itself.

If you have questions on posture and how chiropractic can help give us or a chiropractor near you a call! Changing one small thing can impact your health for the better.

~Dr. Lacey~
Carder Chiropractic Clinic, INC.
El Reno, OK 73036