If you’re like a lot of people, you grew up hearing your mother remind you to stand up straight. There’s some truth to that as if you practice good posture long enough those ligaments become accustomed to that position. This happens over a period of weeks and months.
Home Exercises to Address Upper Spinal Posture
There’s a simple exercise you can do at home to help maintain good upper spinal posture. First, position yourself in front of a doorway. Then raise your arms straight up above your head. Walk through the doorway about a step or step and a half until you start to feel your entire shoulder girdle rotating backward. This action in effect pulls your shoulders back. Then slowly lower your arms down but keep your shoulders back. You’re stretching at this point. Continue walking through the doorway maintaining your improved posture.
Preventing Forward Bent Posture
A hunched-over appearance isn’t a good look. No one wants to look old before their time. A forward bent from the waist posture signifies that a person is starting to become elderly. So, why does this posture happen?
When the vertebrae in your spine aren’t entirely correct, and you start to get abnormal disc pressure, you will naturally and unconsciously many times begin to lean forward a little bit to increase the size of the small opening where the nerve comes out—particularly the lower back.
After a while, the discs in your spine start to become wedge-shaped instead of being square-shaped, which is normal. Once they become wedge-shaped, it’s tough to reverse hunched-over posture. So at the first sign of a spinal problem such as spinal pain, it needs to be addressed before a wedge-shaped disc issue starts to occur.
How Chiropractic Helps
Chiropractic adjustments and special exercises can help prevent forward bent posture. In our facility, we have two pieces of exercise equipment. Each is appropriately called the Back Machine. With this exercise, the patient will lie on their back and arch backward into an arch. The action not only stretches the ligaments and corrects the preliminary wedge-shaped disc from occurring it also mobilizes and stretches all the ligaments in the spine. This in conjunction with a chiropractic adjustment serves to improve posture and spinal health.
Providing Customized Care
Because every patient is different, we will give custom-tailored exercises specific to each patient’s particular situation. If you’d like to improve your posture, contact us today to book an appointment!