If you have poor posture
Take into account the significant influence it may have on your athletic abilities.
Keep in mind that good posture encompasses more than just how you stand or sit.
Sports trainers claim that even a five-minute warm-up cannot compensate for eight hours of being seated. It is important to have proper form in mind when training and exercising.
Posture Punches Up Your Power
Athletes are constantly in motion, altering their positions at varying speeds through short bursts and sustained activity while performing their sport. Proper posture enables athletes to execute specialized moves with ease, resulting in efficient movement and energy conservation throughout the entire game or event. An athlete with poor posture may need to overcompensate with additional movement, which could lead to depletion of power reserves required for later stages of play.
An athlete’s posture can be impacted by daily routines such as driving, eating, playing video games, sitting for prolonged periods, and sleeping, even prior to engaging in their sport. The insufficient posture from everyday life can create deficiencies in motion, which may affect the athlete’s athletic proficiency during gameplay.
Good and Bad Elements of Posture
Having good posture encompasses more than just the way you stand or sit. It stimulates a balance between the skeletal and muscular systems that shields your body from harm, whether it’s in motion or not. Therefore, in addition to sitting or sleeping, athletes also require good posture or proper form when engaging in activities like running, jumping, diving, tumbling, and tackling.
To maintain proper posture, which is often referred to as postural sway, your body needs to constantly adapt to its current surroundings. If you have an exaggerated lower back curve (lumbar curve) or an exaggerated neck curve (thoracic curve), it could be a sign of poor posture, which probably developed over time due to repeated, prolonged or habitual movement.
Your endurance, mid-body stabilization, and respiration can be impacted by having poor posture. If your poor posture goes unchecked, you may experience various conditions such as overextended knees, altered shoulder joint mechanics, and a tight thoracic spine. These conditions can hinder your ability to move efficiently and cause discomfort.
Long Term Overall Health Impact of Poor Posture
Proper posture is crucial in today’s world, where a large number of individuals spend a considerable amount of time either sitting at a desk in front of a device or walking and using their phone. Commonly, people have a tendency to slouch their shoulders and crane their necks downwards when working or studying, viewing a monitor, electronic screen, game, or any other activity. This unfavorable posture not only affects one’s appearance negatively, but it may also cause long-term damage to one’s health and overall well-being.
If you indulge in slouching or crossing your legs for an extended period, it can result in poor circulation by exerting pressure that will impede the movement of different fluids within your system. The increment in pressure outside the standard resting range can cause circulation problems all over your body, and spider veins in your legs could develop as one of the consequences.
ELEVATED STRESS – Inadequate posture can result in an increase in cortisol levels spreading across the body, leading to heightened stress levels beyond mere tolerance. The rise in stress hormone can trigger an undesirable cycle that synergizes with other adverse physical impacts caused by bad posture.
When posture is inadequate, smaller muscle groups may be overwhelmed with excessive pressure. These muscles are not designed to endure the burden brought by poor posture, causing discomfort, soreness, stiffness, and possibly injury if neglected over time.
REDUCED RESPIRATORY FUNCTION – Poor posture limits the full expansion of your lungs which results in suboptimal air intake and outflow from the body. This ultimately causes decreased oxygenation of other bodily tissues leading to a host of symptoms that negatively impact your overall strength and endurance.
Why Posture Matters
“Running tall is important for chest expansion and lung capacity, making it easier to breathe and improving endurance and stamina,” Ochsendorf says. It’s not only good for improving air quality—it can also reduce risk of injury by reducing stress on the knees, hips and back.
According to Ochsendorf, achieving an efficient running style involves maintaining a stable torso, lifting the knees properly, having a good cadence, and making sure there is no unnecessary movement in the arms and rotation, which can lead to inefficiency and wasted energy. Therefore, adopting a straighter stance is essential in developing such a running style.
You cannot have a stable torso and be efficient if you are slouching forward or bending your back.
How To Gauge Your Posture
After realizing the significance of maintaining good posture, what is the subsequent approach to determining if your posture needs enhancement?
You will probably not be able to assess the height at which you hold yourself midstride without the help of a coach or trusted friend, although reviewing a collection of race photos may give you an idea of how your body lands naturally. If you have access to a treadmill with a mirror, you should utilize it to observe your posture at the start of your workout when you’re energized and at the end when fatigued. You can also use the mirror to realign your posture when it starts to deteriorate. However, be wary of becoming too reliant on the mirror since you won’t have it outdoors during your routine runs. Therefore, pay attention to how you feel while positioning yourself correctly and when you don’t so that you can make adjustments without visual assistance.
According to Ochsendorf, to achieve perfect posture while running, it is recommended to employ cues that evoke visual imagery, such as “run tall” or “lead with your chest”, along with maintaining a high cadence of approximately 170 to 180 steps per minute.
How To Improve Your Posture
By integrating additional posture signals into your everyday routine, you can enhance the strength and flexibility of the muscles that support a straight back. This is particularly beneficial for individuals who spend extended periods of time seated at a desk, resulting in hunched backs and rounded shoulders. Select a basic task that you execute several times a day, such as passing through a doorway, drinking water, watching a commercial, or washing your hands, and use it as a prompt to adopt good posture by standing or sitting straight, lowering and retracting your shoulders, and lifting your head from the crown.
Ochsendorf suggests several exercises and stretches that he commonly recommends to his patients and fellow runners to improve posture. For stability, he proposes exercises such as prone press-up, squats, lunges, dynamic balance, and core strengthening. Meanwhile, for flexibility, he suggests performing a kneeling hip flexor stretch, quad stretching, pectoral stretching, and trunk or torso rotation stretch while lying on the floor. Additionally, Ochsendorf advises performing shoulder blade squeezes five times for 10 seconds throughout the day, pectoral stretches before walking through doorways, and implementing a simple foam rolling routine.
