If you sit at a desk all day, if you’re a student at school or you’ve just got bad posture, you might end up looking like this by the time you’re in your 60’s. It’s not a good look.
With more & more of us sitting at work or school in front of computer screens, it’s easy to see why we can develop bad posture. We’re simply not designed to sit at desks all day.
In the early 90’s some bright spark thought we could all use a “Swiss Ball” or “Fit Ball” to sit on at work to fix bad posture forever. What a load of rubbish that was. Sitting on a Ball is not the solution, believe me, I’ve tried it. If you can sit on a ball with good posture, you can sit on a chair with good posture.
The problem with sitting at your desk is that it requires a number of key muscle groups to remain active in order for you to retain good posture. Very often these muscle groups become either tense or weak. Tense or weak muscles can’t provide you with enough support for good posture, so we slump & in turn make those muscles more tense & weaker. So the cycle continues.
What happens next is where we as therapists come in. Your tense & weak muscles lead to pain & discomfort. Here’s a list of common complaints from patients we see every day with bad posture:
- Neck Pain & Shoulder tension
- Headaches
- Fatigue
- Stiff joints
- Pain behind the eyes
- Lower back Pain
- Sciatica
- Pain over the coccyx
- Pain between your shoulder blades
- This list is only a few of the many problems that poor posture causes.
So what’s the solution?
The solution is’nt to tell you that you should sit at your desk for less or that you should sit up straight. That’s obvious. We all know that but it’s not possible to retain good posture for long periods. So we need to manage the effects of sitting badly.
The answers to poor posture are many but let’s just stick to one simple solution that I’ve found to be one of the most powerful. The Foam Roller.
The Foam Roller is a must for every home. I say that because everyone in our home sits, whether at school, work or just to watch the TV.
What the Foam Roller does is open up your chest & stretch those compressed and jammed up muscles & joints between your shoulder blades. This reduces stress on your shoulders, neck & back.
It’s one of the only exercises that I give that doesn’t even get you out of breath.
There are many ways to use the Foam Roller. You can use it vertically along or horizontally across your spine as in this picture or you can even roll it under you, acting like a massager.
You can also use the Foam Roller to help you with other problems like:
- Tight Hamstrings
- Tight ITB’s
- Tight Calf Muscles
- Poor Balance
- Poor core stability
If you’d like to know more about how to improve your posture & how to use the Foam Roller call the clinic and make an appointment with one of our practitioners.
We sell the Foam Roller at the clinic & can give you a set of customized exercises to suit your body type & symptoms.
