How to Stand Up Straight - For People Whose Back Pain Is Caused by Poor Posture

How to Improve Posture and Stand Up Straight

The answer's obvious, isn't it? You put your feet on the floor and just, well, stand? If that was true, there would be very little point in my writing an article about it, so needless to say, there is more to it than that.

Before discussing how to stand up straight, let us first consider why it's important that we should, for if we understand the why, the how to is much easier. Standing straight, and so improving your posture, will put your body back into natural alignment, which in turn places less stress on your joints. It will also help to protect your spine, and opens up your chest cavity so that breathing is much easier.

Poor posture, on the other hand, means your body is out of alignment, and creates uneven pressure on your joints. This can lead to chronic conditions which may manifest themselves, for instance, as an inability to sit or stand for long periods of time.

So How Do You Do It?

The first and most important thing is to ensure that you have a good foundation. By this, I mean that your feet are placed firmly on the floor with your toes pointing forward. Next, tighten your stomach muscles, and rock your pelvis gently back and forth. This will help you to find your neutral position, that is your most ergonomic and balanced position. Then, to check your posture:

Stand next to a wall with your head about an inch from it, your shoulder blades and buttocks touching it lightly, and your heels slightly away from it.Spread your weight evenly over both feet. Your spine has a natural s shape, so do not force it flat back against the wall
Centre your ears over your shoulders and your hips over your knees. These points should form a straight line down the side of your body
Keep your knees straight but not locked
When standing correctly, there should be just enough space between your lower back and the wall to fit your wrist

Having found your perfect posture, the key is to retain it. Initially, this may be quite tricky as you will have to keep reminding yourself which muscles to contract or relax. There are many exercises, known as core stability exercises that you can do to strengthen the muscles in your abdomen which are responsible for enhancing posture. Targeting these muscles will help good posture become more natural.

Additionally, consider reviewing your diet and weight. Being over weight may subconsciously make you alter the way you stand, placing too much strain on your lower back, and leading to chronic conditions in the future. Good posture needs to be learnt, and practiced every day. So why not make a start now and stand up for a bighter future!

Visit http://www.victoriasback.com for more advice on posture and core stability exercises.

By Victoria de Brun

Are Back Pain Problems Caused by Poor Posture Or Muscle Strain?

According to the current study almost 80% of the US population is suffering from back pain problems and to make the matter worse, a big portion of them are ignorant about the causes of this trouble. Muscle strain plays a main role in back pain problem. Among most of the reasons regarding back pain, one of them is a problem which was ignored for a lengthy time. In most of the cases, back ache is usually not a severe trouble and departs quickly. But, if the pain continues for a long time, the unsurpassed decision is to go for a medical advice.

Generally, it is advised to have complete bed rest for back treatment, but studies have revealed that only rest might not relieve to cure the pain. It would be better to take some preventive measures for the back hurt continuing with your normal activities.

It is considered to be a general illness - 8 out of 10 people would experience pain at the back at some stage in their life. It all depends whether the pain is acute, recurrent or chronic.

Medical studies have shown that in case of first category one can seek home remedies and the pain last for about six weeks. If it's the case of recurrent category, the patient feels back pain again after some time but the worst is chronic pain, which last for a longer phase. The intensity of this kind of pain varies from persons to persons as with no any reason at all, some persons feel it all of a sudden, for others it could be like a dull backache to an intense pain.

A word of caution: if someone is experiencing severe and frequent pains, it should not be avoided and the person should seek proper medical advice. Always consult your physician without delay if someone has common symptoms like difficulty in passing urine or having numbness in the back or the genital area, weakness and a shooting pain the leg or feeling unstable while standing.

Effective back pain remedies: Massage is one of the effective ways of reducing the pain. By finding out the exact reason for it, the incidence or the severity of the pain can be reduced by looking or modifying the factors or certain situations causing pain and then trying to find the best possible remedies. One of the common yet overlook problem would be a poor posture. Certain manual actions like lifting, bending and twisting could also result in back related pain.

It is very important to be familiar with the symptoms of back pain as it helps in proper treatment and appropriate rehabilitation procedures are important in minimizing the problems caused by it. There are certain test that needs to be done on person suffering from back pain like:

* blood test

* urine examination

* ultra-sonography of abdomen and pelvis an X-ray of the lumbar or sacral region

* MRI of the spine examination of rectum, prostate, genito urinary organs etc.

In addition to this there are several medicines like Acetaminophen and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs which are available for the proper treatment of pain at the back, especially low back pain. The doctors may recommend narcotic pain medications or muscle relaxants in case of acute back pain.

Want to stop back pain problems? We provide a lot of free tips and advice at http://removemybackpain.com.