My daughter is just over one years old. I’ve seen her go from blob to unstoppable bundle of energy walking and now starting to run. What I notice most though is her posture. It’s great!
I’ve written about the Baby Crawling exercises that I am a huge fan of. They help. But good posture is also an attitude, and for people in our living in these times sitting at a desk and staring at a screen, we need the good posture attitude more than ever.
My daughter won’t do something if she must break her posture to achieve it. She won’t round her back to get up off the floor. Since she doesn’t do that, she crawls to something that can support her to get up.
There are dozens of other things she does where she makes sure she doesn’t break good posture. Of course, adults violate posture with impunity. We don’t seem to care. And you can tell—most adults have bad posture. I’ve violated posture in all sorts of ways, and I’ve abused my body by adopting poor form in many things to get more velocity on my throws, weight on the bar, and so on.
Invariably, I suffer for cheating. It’s the little ego talking that wants to be so cool. I guess I’ve suffered enough, or I’ve learned from my daughter, and I’m breaking my posture less. What does that mean? It means changing all sorts of little things:
- Keeping my shoulders down and back, not rounded forward
- Not rounding my back when I put on socks, underwear, pants, and so on
- Not rounding my back when working on projects (putting things together, stuff like that)
- Not rolling my shoulders forward when I’m at the keyboard
- And most of all, not violating these rules when lifting weights
If you can’t do something with good posture, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it all? It’s not completely practical, but with everything you do, you can be more aware of your posture. There are tons of benefits to this, but notably it’s in reducing neck pain, increasing lung capacity, and not looking like a slouch.
I say, take a look at some old person that’s all crippled and hunched over. Take one good look and then say, “No way!” And then—do something about it! Don’t break your posture!!!