Reporter Jean Enersen shares on her HealthLink segment the benefits of checking your posture, plus how you can do it with the use of a free app called PostureZone.

Watch the clip below to hear Posture Expert Dr. Steven Weiniger’s tips for maintaining a healthy posture:

Why you need to break free from a “C” posture…

“It’s not only about how the body looks, but how it functions” Dr. Steven Weiniger.

We are always concerned with the products we put on our skin or the foods we put in our bodies, but we rarely consider the silent workings that our muscles and bones do, day in, day out. The keyword, here, is posture, a variable that can cost up to three inches to a person’s height and tells a lot about one’s lifestyle and attitude.

“The more your head is forward, the more your body is folding, the more your body is folding, the older you look», says Dr. Steven Weiniger, posture expert and author of the book “Stand Taller Live Longer: an Anti-Aging Strategy.”

An unhealthy position is like a session in the gym during which we are shortening some muscles and stretching others.

It works like this: when we keep an unhealthy position, we condition our muscles and while we “dive” into a position, the dynamic spirals. This explains the characteristic “C” shape that is a staple sign of aging and that goes along with less flexibility and fluidity in movements. But there’s more:

“It’s not only a matter of how the body looks, it’s also how the body functions”.

A crumpled body, in fact, allows a more limited quantity of air intake. This means that the organs are receiving less oxygen than they would normally do with a correct posture. Getting less oxygen equals to less nutrients for the cells and a less efficient removal of carbon dioxide and other wastes.

“What we do today will have an impact on our body in the long term,” says Dr. Weiniger.

The sooner we replace old habits with healthier behavior, the better, but in the meanwhile being aware of the position of our body gives us a clearer view of ourselves and our goals. The good news is that you do not need to go to the gym to introduce these changes. You can find some ideas below.


Resources:

1. Be aware of your posture problems: download the Posture Zone app and take a picture of you every three months to evaluate the change

2. Drink plenty of water: the hydration improves the elasticity of the tissues and this applies to the ones that sustain the spine. Furthermore, the intervertebral discs need to be hydrated to perform their choc-absorbing role

3. When sitting down, set an alarm and take regular breaks every 45-60 minutes for a little walk, a bit of stretching and a drink of some water

4. Tai Chi, yoga and StrongPosture® exercises can help to correct and even reverse negative changes

Read the entire article: The Age Buster

Where to begin education & training on posture:

For professionals helping patients/clients to relieve pain and improve motion, the continual improvement of movement control with individualized protocols that include short-duration exercises that address motor control reinforces the results of treatment, as well as empowering people to better manage their own issues.

Posture pros combine clinical therapy to remove restrictions and restore movement with StrongPosture® exercise protocols to relieve pain, regain function and retrain control of body motion.  New exercises are added systematically to strengthen the body’s kinetic chain with tracks focusing on the Three Elements of Posture- Balance, Alignment and Motion (BAM).   Plus, patients and staff share the excitement when changes are confirmed with changes in new PostureZone picture.  Learn more about our online course – get up to 20 hours of posture training!

For the general consumer who wants to stay healthy, incorporating a personal StrongPosture® BAM program to counteract bad posture habits takes just minutes a day, and optimizes form to maximize the benefits from other exercise and activity.  Plus it’s fun to actually see yourself standing taller when comparing your PostureZone pictures over time!  Get the FREE PostureZone app to start tracking

Professionals:
Join global network of Certified Posture Exercise Professionals (CPEP) helping people stand taller.
For professional and team training info on CPEP Training, go here and click the RED button to receive the FREE info packet.

Consumers:
Stand Taller and Live Longer with StrongPosture®

For info on creating your own 7 Weeks to StrongPosture® program, or finding a CPEP professional to address problems and individualized training, see BodyZone.com

Check Your PostureZone Picture.
Do Your StrongPosture® Exercises daily.

The key to retention is compliance, and the key to compliance is engagement. Structured StrongPosture® exercises are a rehab protocol framework that gets people excited about their progress…especially when they experience being able to move without pain and balance in ways they thought they couldn’t.

When a member of your team is training someone and personally facilitates the objective functional improvement, there’s a contagious excitement between patient and staff. The positive feedback, results and interaction build the patient’s desire for further improvement.

All exercise is definitely not created equal, especially when it comes to engaging patients. StrongPosture® exercises are unique in creating objective personal awareness, and benchmarking that awareness with a PostureZone picture. The attentional focus of StrongPosture® MUST vs TRY cueing means exercise is functionally individualized to the person. Systematically correcting someone’s perception of their motion to objective reality targets the weak link in that person’s kinetic chain, as evidenced when one person feels tightness in the legs while another experiences a stretch in the middle back with the same focused-motion exercise.

Dr. Weiniger discusses the value of creating a PosturePractice team in the video below:

Unlike canned programs, new exercises aren’t added randomly to just add difficulty – they systematically strengthen the kinetic chain with tracks focusing on the Three Elements of Posture – Balance, Alignment and Motion – BAM. Combined with clinical therapy to remove restrictions, restore movement and promote healing, patient and staff share the excitement when the new awareness and functional control of personal body symmetry is confirmed with changes in their posture picture.

StrongPosture® rehab exercises can be taught by a trained staff person in most states, and reimbursed as Therapeutic Exercise (CPT code 97110). When training is properly documented as part of a rehab program, Neuromuscular Re-education (CPT 97112) can be another option. And one of the advantages of having exercises taught by a Certified Posture Exercise Professional (CPEP), is having a staff person teach StrongPosture® classes – which can be billed as Group Exercise (CPT 97150)

Clearly connecting the exercise, presenting symptoms and their PostureZone picture is important to build strong staff-patient engagement (as well as for your clinical treatment plans and insurance coding). When there’s a clear purpose for addressing posture from the benchmark picture, and the patient is engaged with their pain relief and functional improvement, the team member gets excited because they helped the person improve. It’s the same excitement clinicians experience when our insight and skills prompt a patient to give a heartfelt “Thank You!”

In this introduction to StrongPosture® motion, when the subject is cued to perform lateral pelvic control, he recruits substitutive motion patterns and uses hip abductors instead of the core muscles. A foam pad is one of the low tech tools used to provide kinesthetic cues and enable him to focus control from compensatory hip abduction to find stronger inner core muscle engagement.

Watch the demo below:

Systematically focusing attention along each BAM track, and progressing function up and down the kinetic chain, is the key to retraining perception to reality from static posture to dynamic motion. Mindful motion is dynamic, and retraining its complexity begins with static attentional focus.

PostureZone® and motion patterns observed in static posture are also expressed in dynamic gait, which is why BAM Motion track attentional focus usually strengthens the weak standing postural balance observed earlier in this subject’s Balance track. In other words, each BAM track synergizes with the others to build a virtuous spiral of StrongPosture® in motion.

My memory from last time on Jury Duty included poorly designed seating, so this time I was ready and brought along my trusty SitSmart from BackJoy. It made a big difference in being able to sit comfortably with relaxed posture.

Also…Inasmuch as I’m fascinated by posture, I couldn’t help noticing that as the day wore on, people’s posture seemed to fold a bit more. And then fold a bit more later on.

I specifically noticed the progressive postural fold of man to my right and a woman a few rows up. Both of them got up when we were told to take a break, and though they were less folded when they came back, it wasn’t long before they were back in folded posture.

BOTTOM LINE:  Be posture aware, and when possible plan for circumstances that fold your posture.

Your smart phone addiction now can lead to a higher risk of suffering a fall later in life, according to chiropractor and posture guru, Dr. Steven Weiniger. NBC News reports on the recent research surrounding sedentary lifestyles and poor posture, and Weiniger shares expert tips to help avoid becoming a statistic.

Watch the clip below:

The BAM (Balance-Alignment-Motion) StrongPosture® protocols systematically connect perceived body awareness to true reality with structured attentional focus on proprioceptive and kinesthetic cues.

StrongPosture® WallLean (Alignment Track 0.9) is the initial focus on the linkage between the Torso PostureZone® and the Pelvic PostureZone®. The more common name for this linkage is “the core.” From rehab to performance to wellness, it’s essential to properly couple and coordinate the core to stabilize and control bodily motion.

In the video below, Dr. Weiniger leads and cues the WallLean exercise.

“The Body Moves in a Kinetic Chain, but a Chain is only as strong as its weakest link”
~1st Posture Principle, Stand Taller~Live Longer: An Anti- Aging Strategy

Tight kinetic chain links restrict motion, loose links become ruts of adaptive motion patterns, and perception shifts so that it’s all “normal.”

Systematic attentional focus is the key to retraining perception to reality, which is why StrongPosture® WallLean uses an objectively vertical wall as the beginning of the Alignment track.

Greater postural asymmetry means there’s more bio-mechanic strain on joints, and stressed muscles become better at moving the body in the patterns of motion that create bio-mechanic stress.

The BAM (Balance-Alignment-Motion) StrongPosture® protocols train people to become aware of their sensory misperceptions of their posture. As full-range motion is restored with passive therapy like spinal manipulation and myo-fascial therapy, the goal becomes retraining towards greater symmetry in life as they sit and stand, walk and run, work and play. Postural asymmetry begins with balance, and PostureZone® attentional focus is key to finding an individual’s specific area of relative tightness &/or weakness.

“Motion follows the path of least resistance” (3rd Posture Principle, Stand Taller~Live Longer: An Anti- Aging Strategy), and when someone’s personal perception of their posture is inaccurate, focusing their attention is the first step to restoring functional symmetry. And when people consistently report that a “simple” exercise is “A LOT harder than I thought it would be,” you see big differences in posture and how they move.

In the video below, Dr. Weiniger continues to explore and demonstrate the Balance track of the StrongPosture® BAM exercises. 

Dr. Steven Weiniger, an expert in posture, says it’s time to change the way you’re using your technology, from your work computer to your tablet at home. NBC News shares this segment with tips from Dr. Weiniger on where you can begin changing your habits and add years to your life.

View the clip below: