Don’t be a hunchback!

Building your body is a great idea, slouching isn’t. (click here to download my full free muscle-building workout)

You don’t need to look like a marine, but a straight spine radiates confidence and actually makes you feel better. This is because your physiology is directly linked to your emotions.

If you’re going to spend all that time working out and eating right, you might as well maximize your efforts by standing tall.

 

How To Have Good Posture – In 10 Easy Steps

 

(1) Keep the ears, shoulders and hips in alignment

Whether you’re standing or sitting keep these in a vertical line to improve your posture. Resist the temptation to push your head forward; start to notice if your ears are in line with your shoulders and correct if necessary.

If you have “forward head posture”, you can correct it quite easily with the simple technique in this video…

 

(2) When Sitting – Get a chair with sufficient lumbar support!

You’re probably sitting right now, so do this as you’re reading!

Your chair’s backrest should have natural curve that fits into the hollow of your lower back. Basically when sitting down your spine should be in contact with the backrest from your tailbone right up to your upper back. Also, keep your feet flat on the floor when seated. See this image…

 

(3) The Balloon Method

My favorite technique and not very well known.

Try this: If you don’t have great posture, stand up right now. Now imagine that there is a balloon on a string extending from the crown of your head. Imagine that this balloon is pulling your head upwards towards the sky. You’ll automatically stand upright with your spine elongated. Doesn’t this little mind trick work great? If you keep doing this for a few weeks, the habit will stick and you’ll have corrected your posture.

 

(4) Move!

If your job or school life involves a lot of sitting around, you’re more likely to slouch. As your muscles tire of being in the same position you’ll begin to slump down. You need more movement. For office jobs I suggest you make a habit of getting up and moving, even if just for a minute, once every 30 minutes.

 

 

(5) Do These 4 Quick Exercises for Great Posture

There are very simple and quick exercises you can do at home with no equipment that have a rapid and dramatic effect on your posture. The best time to do these is in the morning before work/school before any bad postural habits have had a chance to kick in.

Watch this short video for 4 easy but extremely effective exercises: The Prone ‘Y‘, the Prone ‘T‘, the Prone ‘W‘, and the Prone ‘L‘…

 

P.S. If you want to use the same workout as I do to build muscle (not just have great posture), just pop in your email and click the button.

You don’t have to go to your email to click a confirm link or anything like that; the download will appear immediately after you enter your email. Enjoy them gains! 🙂

 

(6) Avoid High-Heels (for the ladies)

“Easy” say the men. “Not so easy!” shout the women. When you don’t need to wear them, don’t. Heels alter the body’s center of gravity and throw it out of alignment. If heels are a must, consider the smaller types if you are serious about improving your posture.

 

(7) Develop an Awareness of your Posture

When people try to consciously improve their posture, they can often go for hours with poor posture before even remembering to correct it. This is the power of bad habits. To increase your awareness of the problem, it’s a great idea to keep a visual reminder at the place where you spend most of your time. For example, if you sit at a desk a lot, make a sketch of a stick figure man on a post-it note. Then every time you see this sketch you’ll ask yourself, “How is my posture? Are my ears in-line with my shoulders? Are my feet flat on the floor?”

 

(8) Get Confident!

As stated previously, posture affects confidence but confidence also affects posture. The more confident you are, the better your posture will be. Confidence is nothing but a habit and can be learned. I may write an article on it in the near future.

 

(9) When Bending Over to Pick Something Up, Don’t Fold at the Waist

Bend your knees, keep your spine straight and lift the object.

 

(10) Don’t Overdo It!

If you try to stay poker-straight, you’ll feel uncomfortable and eventually give-up on great posture. Allow flexibility in your neck and knees. Shift your body weight around often. A rigid body is not what you’re after! Your spine has a natural curve, you’re not aiming to be a robot. Simply remember the ear, shoulder and hip alignment – that’s sufficient for a healthy posture.

 

Stand Tall and Confident!

Your buddy,

Mark McManus, trainer & author of the NEW fat-torching system “Total Six Pack Abs” & the BREAKTHROUGH Arm-Maximizer program “The Arms Blast Experiment Revealed!“

image credit – ‘Correct sitting posture with CG-Lock‘ by ‘big g fish‘ at flickr.