I was experiencing some neck pain, and went online in search of some at-home remedies. Of the remedies, posture was one of them which got me thinking: “Does posture really matter that much?”.
So will fixing my posture help with my neck pain and grant me numerous other benefits i see on these blogs?
chronic pain is not as much fun as they ought you to believe - turns out it’s not that easy to amputate some section of your back
No, back pain is a woke hoax
Phew! Guess i was worried for nothing. Fuck the left!
So to correct one thing:
Poor posture is a symptom of poor core strength, particularly, your rhomboids and lower back. If your muscles are both stronger and more flexible, they will literally pull your bones into the correct alignment, without any conscious thought towards sitting straighter.
Start by taking a short walk once a day (free). A 100 day pushup challenge (free) or starting Yoga classes (can be free on YouTube, but in-person has several benefits, including having someone correcting your form, and some social structures to help provide extra motivation) would be a great next step. Longer term, maybe light weights and rows alongside using a treadmill or stationary bike.
If you choose to look into weight training, “Starting strength” is a decent program by Mark Rippetoe that I would recommend.
Hi. Your post is interesting in general but when you say 100 pushups a day… is it really a challenge for a normal or even a fit person or is it just some random thing you found while browsing?
On day one, do one push up. Day two, two. Sounds a bit ridiculous, but it gradually builds difficulty.
Crucially, it is not all in one sitting. On day 10, if needed, do five when you wake up, and five before bed.
Break it up into something achievable. And if you miss a day, don’t sweat it. Again, the idea is to start to build, or rebuild strength and flexibility, the exercises themselves barely matter; you could do planks instead, for example.
Wow. Super hard. I may try it but I don’t think I can do more than 20 or 25, even spreading them in 5 repetitions.
Don’t worry about what you can or can’t do four weeks from now. Stay focused on what you need to do this week.
Very interesting. I’ll look into these. Thanks!
My hot take is that short-term posture doesn’t matter all that much. If you have bad posture but you get up every 20 minutes and stretch/do chores/exercise for 5-10 minutes, you probably erase the original issues.
My one-two punch, if you’re looking for advice: make sure you use a chair that makes good posture easy, with your keyboard+mouse & monitor height well separated on your desk (if computing’s the main thing you’re doing as you work). And then make sure you’re getting a lot of activity throughout the day. Spans of 2, 3, 4, etc. hours just sitting at your desk will be really bad for you, no matter how good your posture is.
I guess what I’m saying is if you can either focus a lot on posture or focus a lot on physical activity routines, prioritize the latter. But both are certainly important.
I spend most of my day staring at a computer, and i have an atrocious posture while doing it. Do back cracks count as stretching?
It might not fix the neck pain depending on why you’re experiencing the pain. You should definitely give a shit about your posture though. Your spine is responsible for keeping your whole upper body upright (along with your abdominal muscles and some others). Neglecting and mistreating that is not a good idea long term.
I guess i can see the logic. I think at this point, bad posture just feels like a natural and normal thing since 90% of people also have it.
