Posture Exercises: The Reasons Why Posture Changes with Age
Posted by admin on Jun 16, 2009
One of the tell-tale signs of the aging process is poor posture, but it is actually possible to prevent this with posture exercises.
Arguably the least attractive thing about old age is the customary hunched back and rounded shoulders that all too often accompany grey hairs and wrinkles. However, it is possible to maintain a great posture into old age – so I have written this blog post to tell you what you need to know.
It really helps to be aware of the causes of posture deterioration as it can motivate you into doing the posture exercises that I have described in previous posts, especially the semi-supine lying down.
Reason for Poor Posture #1: Several Thousand Hours of Sitting at a School Desk in Our Childhood Years
Watch any child when they are in their preschool years and you will see an example of a perfect posture. Children naturally hold no excessive tension in their bodies and move with effortless poise regardless of what they are doing. This is put to an end when the child starts school, as the child is made to sit in very badly designed furniture, in a static position, for hours on end. For more details about this matter, please see my previous blog post, but in short this is a dangerous way of working due to the following two reasons:
- Holding the body still for any extended period of time causes the muscles to tire and tense.
- A typical school chair slopes backwards, thus tipping the pelvis away from the desk. This leaves the child with no option but to round their back in order to reach their desks.
In countries where children are not made to sit at school desks, you will almost always see that they maintain their perfect posture into adulthood.
Reason for Poor Posture #2: Lack of Exercise
Movement and exercise are commonly overlooked, but in fact they are perhaps one of the best posture exercises that you can do to ensure healthy and happy living. The reason for this is that our bodies are designed for continuous movement — we are never really still for any length of time. Even the act of standing, which many would assume is a static position, actually involves many micro-adjustments that are performed unconsciously over and over. An exercise you can try is to stand on one leg and then close your eyes and see how hard it is to maintain your balance. It shows how much we rely on our eyes to make the tiny adjustments in muscle tension that keep us upright.
Despite movement being such an important activity, we often make no time for it in our daily schedule. I know that I am certainly guilty of this — I very rarely put in my diary anything to do with exercise. Instead, people will wait and tell their posture has deteriorated to the point where they have to go and see a doctor. Unfortunately, the doctor has a limited range of semi-effective remedies for back pain. If only a little exercise were taken a few times a week — most times this would have had a much more significant effect than anything a doctor or surgeon can administer.
The major problem seems to be that from the time a child goes to school until a person retires, we are typically expected to spend most of a day in a sitting position. It is hardly surprising that so many people have back pain these days when you consider that the average adult will spend around nine hours every single working day in a chair.
Despite old age being commonly associated with weakness and frailty, it has been shown that remarkable muscle strength can be achieved even at ages of 70 and above. It’s a simple case of if you don’t use it, you lose it….. So use it! Cycling, jogging, swimming, etc are all fantastic posture exercises that do you the world of good and can be great fun.
Computer Posture: How To Stop Laptops Doing Permanent Damage To Your Posture
Posted by admin on May 23, 2009
Improving your “computer posture” is one of the most effective ways to avoid getting rounded shoulders and neck ache.
While you need to be aware of your posture on any computer, when using a laptop it is especially easy to pick up bad habits.
The trouble with laptops is that they keyboard and display are too close together. Either you are looking down too much (bad for your neck), or your hands are too high (which encourages tense shoulders).
If only used for short periods at a time, laptops don’t really pose much risk, but increasingly people are spending several hours a day on them.
There are some solutions as demonstrated by posture expert Tamara James in the following video: -
Tamara recommends using a separate keyboard and mouse to improve the laptop’s poor ergonomics, which made me wonder if laptop manufactures should be made to supply such extras as standard. Better still would be a laptop with a detachable keyboard.
