Fixing my body using "The Power of Posture"!: The importance of good posture

I just wanted to add a short post to my blog to summarise and highlight some of the real life benefits and importance of good posture......

Having been focusing on addressing my postural imbalances for nearly 3 months now, I firmly believe that good posture is the absolute key to our general long term health and well being, both physical and emotional, regardless of your lifestyle choices and goals, posture can help you!

Yes, you!.......or 'us' I should say......human beings, that is!! Whilst every person on this planet is so beautifully different and wonderfully unique, we are however all fundamentally the same in our basic design and bio mechanics (genetic diseases and physical disabilities aside of course).

So in simple terms, what can you expect to gain from practising 'good posture'.........

#1......a slimmer waist! Straight away, no diet, no exercise or magic pills or supplements. Just good posture.........and BAM!.....you will slim down in the belly straight away and get the narrower waist that so many people strive to achieve through habitual dieting and exercise programmes. Don't believe me.....? Try this out for yourself........

Look at yourself naked (or in your underwear) in the mirror. Make a note of where you see rolls and folds in the skin/fat. Now....pull yourself up straight, push back your shoulder and let them relax down (don't hunch), breath into and expand your chest growing tall and tighten your tummy ('engage your core'). Now look for the rolls and folds again......Note how they have significantly reduced, if not disappeared completely. Now hold onto that image! With good posture, you can look like that all the time. No exercise, no diet! Just good posture. Not bad eh??

You can see the same results here.......

When I say posture can help everyone, in every aspect of their life, from elite sports to couch potatoes and everyone in between....I am not even exaggerating. I picked on a 'slimmer waist' as an example because it is a very common goal in society today that most people who adopt some sort of new diet and exercise programme would be looking to achieve. Weight loss would be up there too I suppose.

But instead of these kind of goals, I would encourage people to try and change their focus slightly and make good posture the ultimate and primary goal, not just for 30, 60 or 90 days (or whatever specified term for the selected 'challenge'), but for life......You might just be very surprised how everything else and other goals you might have had, just kind of falls into place......

Here are some of the benefits that can be reaped by focusing on postural correction and the specific routines and exercises that need to be applied to promote and train your body to naturally hold a good posture........

(Non exhaustive list and in no particular order of priority or importance)

Reduce and cure chronic bodily aches, and pains (Lower back pain for example)
Improve breathing, by opening up the chest
Improved blood flow and circulation
Improved flexibility
Improved core strength and stability
Better balance
Reduce stress and depression
Improve sleeping
Better movement through increased range of motions
Relieve muscles cramps
Relieve sprains and strains (more importantly, prevent them in the first place!)
Massively reduce injury risk (prevention is better than cure)
Improved motivation
Increased height and length (our bodies become very compressed though poor posture)
Hold and project yourself with an air of confidence
Increased confidence
Increased bodily awareness ('mindfulness'- it's bit of a 'wank word', but is so so important!!)
Faster swimming through increased efficiency (longer and more streamlined in the water)
Save money from costly body work injury (physio, chiropractor, etc) treatments.
There is no pain left to cure!
..................

(the list could go on and on......you name it, and posture can probably help......)

As I said at the top, I want this post to be a short one, so I'll just leave it there for now!

As always, thanks for reading!

Just to finish off and hopefully give some food for thought........here are some examples of VERY common postural dysfunctions in today's society........human dysfunction being applied and unintentionally trained for a life of chronic pain, discomfort and injury risk!!!!