Do you suffer from back, neck, and shoulder pain, stiffness, or self-consciousness because you have not-so-great posture?
Incorrect posture can stem from an injury, bad habit, or genetic predisposition, but with time, effort and the right tools, it can be corrected. Everything from your sitting position, your ability to live an active lifestyle, and your emotional state can be negatively impacted by improper posture. Incorrect posture and alignment creates muscular imbalances, which can lead to further imbalances below the upper body.
Muscular imbalances are caused by a variety of factors and lead to tightness in certain areas and weakness in other areas.
Muscular imbalances and the resulting discomfort related to poor back posture can be detrimental to your health and well-being. But with the use of a proper brace posture corrector, you can retrain your muscles to achieve your natural posture.
There are many different braces, posture shirts and other posture trainer devices that you put on your body designed to improve your posture. The best fit will vary by individuals depending on the source of the improper posture and individual body types.
With a growing percentage of our population working in office jobs (infamous for creating computer hunching induced "tech neck") posture is something that is growing in public awareness.
There are a lot of products in the posture marketplace; everything ranging from different exercises to products like posture shirts and braces, but the most important thing is to find something that is comfortable that you can wear on a regular basis.
Corrector Braces counteract our tendencies to round shoulders and hunch by retraining our postural muscles to instead have the proper form. When we sit with our shoulders forward for extended periods of time, the soft muscle tissues get tight across your chest. If your posture is chronically in a bad position, it feels strained to hold your shoulders back or to stand up straight. Your back gets rounded and your shoulders go forward. Below is a picture of the incorrect and correct postures. When wearing a posture brace your muscles get pulled back to what used to be your natural position. Even 15-30 minutes a day can help alleviate those muscles and get you back on track to having your posture correct and natural once more, as it helps to build muscle memory as well as reduce chronic back pain.
For the tissues in the front of your chest, like your pec(chest) muscles, they’re actually going to adapt to this position and they're going to shorten. Your back muscles are going to lengthen and become too long. What happens when they've adapted this way is that those shortened muscle tissues are going to make it really hard to get out of that position and go into a better postural position, making maintaining good posture nearly impossible.
This is because you're always going to be fighting tension formed by incorrect posture.
A posture device with shoulder straps is the best tool to help you get started on the journey of achieving your best posture so that you can stand straight without hunching
That's the principle of tissue adaptation. Your body basically does whatever you hold for a long period of time. Your body will adapt to the position you stay in the longest day after day. In a brace, you're stretching the shortened chest muscles, and encouraging the muscles in your back and shoulder blades to contract. We can adapt to a bad position or we can adapt to a good position. It really just comes down to which position you're in the most.
So if you're still wondering, do these correction braces or shirts actually work?
The short answer to that is yes! Try a brace for just a few minutes and you will feel the difference.
If you're wearing a brace that’s pulling your shoulders back, externally rotating your arms, lifting your chest up and you wear it for eight hours then your tissues will adapt to the way the pec(chest) muscles are most of the time. The upper back muscle tissues are going to be a little bit shortened and it will help you maintain this position. It’s a great form of physical therapy, as it can result in neck pain and joint pain relief because you’re not leaning forward but instead in proper alignment.
So what is leading to bad posture in the first place? There are a variety of factors, such as poor sitting position, injury, or physically demanding job. But often, other factors in the body can contribute to your posture, namely your hip placement. Often in individuals with posture issues, the hips have an anterior tilt of the pelvis. This means you are tipped forward and your butt is kind of sticking out. If you have this, then your body may develop a condition known as thoracic kyphosis.
This results in the rounding of the upper back, which will encourage your shoulders to fall forward. The key here to prevent this is to consciously tuck in your tailbone and strengthen your core muscles. By tucking in your tailbone, strengthening your abs, and wearing a brace to train your back, you can banish incorrect posture for good. One of the easiest ways to start putting your mindset in the right place to fix your posture is with a comfortable, quality posture brace.