posture - Hope Clinic Care

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Your workout posture may determine the quality of your workout routine.

How many of you put hitting the gym as your 2022 resolution?

Maybe you want to lose weight. Or maybe you want to gain weight. Or maybe you don’t care so much about it, and instead, you’re aiming for better stamina, better endurance, and overall, just a better lifestyle. Whatever it is, there are several things you need to pay attention to, especially if you’re a beginner. One of them is your workout posture.

Fitness is a world of its own. There are countless articles, hacks, tips and tricks out there. You’ve probably heard about how important correct posture is while exercising, but why? Well, to put it simply, posture is the body’s alignment and positioning in relation to the force of gravity. Gravity exerts pressure on our joints and muscles, so, maintaining a good workout posture ensures that the force of gravity is distributed evenly throughout our body as you exercise.

Let’s say you’re doing squats without a proper form. Your back is rounded, your knees go too far beyond your toes, you’re not going low enough… if you do this repetitively, it will not only strain your joints, but it also won’t train the muscles you’re targeting enough. Eventually, you’re left with knee, ankle, or lower back injuries instead of a leaner lower body.

Now, let’s take a look at the proper postures of 2 popular exercises: squats and push-ups.

1. Squats

Squatting is a popular exercise method for training lower body muscles, such as glutes and hamstrings. To do it correctly, these are the steps you can do:

Stand with your feet a little wider than your hips.
Make sure that your toes point slightly outward.
You can put your arms straight, or you can bend them while clasping your palms together.
Your heels and the balls of your feet must remain glued to the surface.
Keep your core tight and your upper body straight as you squat down, reaching a little over a 90-degree angle. Make sure that your knees remain facing outward and stay in line with your toes.
Straighten your legs to lift back up.

2. Push-up

Ah, the classic upper body strength exercise… push-ups. Seems simple, yet apparently, a lot of people still do it incorrectly. So, here are a few steps of how to have a proper push-up form:

Get down on all fours, straighten your legs, and place your hands slightly wider than your shoulders.
Keep your core and glutes tight, and your back straight.
Your buttocks must be in line with your body, not higher in the air or lower to the ground.
Gradually lower yourself, arms bent all the way while keeping your posture straight until your chest is close to the floor, but not entirely touching it.
Push yourself back up. When you do this, maintain your posture. Do not hollow out your back, as it would hurt your shoulders.

So, have you been doing it right? If not, well, it’s not too late to correct your workout posture. However, we know that sometimes, accidents occur. Sometimes, things just go wrong. Maybe your muscles ache, or your joints are strained. Fear not! When injuries happen and it seems like your body is giving up, there’s a convenient solution for you: Hope Clinic Care.

Hope Clinic Care is a place where you can get non-invasive and non-opioid treatment. With an over 93% success rate, Hope Clinic Care offers excellent treatment procedures that are 100% drug-free! Using verified hands-on techniques and dual modality devices, such as a proprietary 3D Motion analysis, we are able to identify areas that are either misused or dysfunctioning. This enables us to more specifically identify and treat the problem.

Hope Clinic Care provides solutions to relieve pain caused by incorrect workout posture by facilitating your body to maximize its healing and repairing ability. No drugs needed, yet just as effective—if not more. Make an appointment now at https://hopecliniccare.com/contact-us/ or call (1)480 659 5470.

Chiropractors often talk about the importance of good and correct posture. The way you hold your body influences what feels comfortable and what doesn’t. Sitting or standing with poor posture can cause many problems including neck pain, back pain, shoulder aches, headaches, fatigue, and limited movement. However, for some people, bad habits and a lack of knowledge make it difficult to maintain this healthy position. Thus, it is easy to make these mistakes without realizing it, and as a result, our joints and muscles don’t get as much movement as they should. Unfortunately, it will take a while before the body gets any signals to let you know that you have been maintaining poor posture.

Now, it’s time to recognize the most common posture mistakes and break your bad habits!

Staying in one position for way too long

This is the number one posture mistake! We all do this every once in a while, sometimes unknowingly. Ideally, our bodies need to move and make postural changes many times throughout the day, because staying static will lead to discomfort, and eventually, pain. Even staying in a “good” posture for too long is not really that good for you.

So, what is the solution? Fairly simple—move around and change your body’s position every 30 minutes. Do some stretching, walk around your apartment, maybe a little exercise… anything helps!

Fixating our gaze downward for too long

Now, this poor posture is very common among us, from students to working adults. We’re all required to use our cellphones and computers to study and work. When we do that, the typical posture we hold is tilting our heads forward for too long. Our heads are heavy, and maintaining the incorrect posture for a long time puts a lot of tension in the neck and upper back muscles, rather than the weight being evenly supported by all the muscles of the spine.

How do I fix this? Well, your head is supposed to be straight with your line of sight and parallel to the ground beneath you. So, what you can do is hold handheld devices directly in front of you at eye- or shoulder-height. If you work with your computer or laptop often, raise your screen or stack books underneath it to ensure that you can keep your neck and spine in a neutral position.

Slouching while sitting or standing

Sometimes, slouching does feel comfortable. But when we do it, it means we’re not engaging our core (abdominal) muscles to support our spine. If your belly pushes forward and your lower back pushes backward every time you sit or stand, it can lead to lower back issues.

Fix it by sitting or standing with your back straight and pulling your belly button in toward the lower spine to engage your abdominal muscles. However, refrain from doing it too much, because it may curve the lower spine backward.

Sleeping in a wrong position

I know, I know… it feels impossible to control how and in what position you should sleep. Even so, there are a few simple things you can do to train your body to sleep in the correct posture. First, your mattress choice is important! Go for a firmer mattress. Next, the ideal sleeping position is keeping your spine straight, but sleeping on your side with a pillow between your legs is alright, too. You can also sleep on your back with a pillow under your knees. Make sure to not sleep on your stomach, though, because it may cause your neck and lower back to be strained.

Good posture is usually not the first thing that crosses our mind when we talk about health, but remember this: a bad posture and a good posture have one thing in common—it may change your life. So, give your posture a necessary fix!

Your workout posture may determine the quality of your workout routine.

How many of you put hitting the gym as your 2022 resolution?

Now, let’s take a look at the proper postures of 2 popular exercises: squats and push-ups.

1. Squats

Squatting is a popular exercise method for training lower body muscles, such as glutes and hamstrings. To do it correctly, these are the steps you can do:

Stand with your feet a little wider than your hips.

Make sure that your toes point slightly outward.

You can put your arms straight, or you can bend them while clasping your palms together.

Your heels and the balls of your feet must remain glued to the surface.

Keep your core tight and your upper body straight as you squat down, reaching a little over a 90-degree angle. Make sure that your knees remain facing outward and stay in line with your toes.

Straighten your legs to lift back up.

2. Push-up

Ah, the classic upper body strength exercise… push-ups. Seems simple, yet apparently, a lot of people still do it incorrectly. So, here are a few steps of how to have a proper push-up form:

Get down on all fours, straighten your legs, and place your hands slightly wider than your shoulders.

Keep your core and glutes tight, and your back straight.

Your buttocks must be in line with your body, not higher in the air or lower to the ground.

Gradually lower yourself, arms bent all the way while keeping your posture straight until your chest is close to the floor, but not entirely touching it.

Push yourself back up. When you do this, maintain your posture. Do not hollow out your back, as it would hurt your shoulders.

Read more articles:

https://hopecliniccare.com/poor-posture-and-how-to-fix-them/

https://hopecliniccare.com/myofascial-release-therapy-how-does-it-work/

https://hopecliniccare.com/toxicity-of-fitness-culture/

https://www.health.com/fitness/improve-your-posture-workout

https://www.wellandgood.com/10-minute-posture-workouts/

Now, it’s time to recognize the most common posture mistakes and break your bad habits!

Staying in one position for way too long

So, what is the solution? Fairly simple—move around and change your body’s position every 30 minutes. Do some stretching, walk around your apartment, maybe a little exercise… anything helps!

Fixating our gaze downward for too long

Slouching while sitting or standing

Sometimes, slouching does feel comfortable. But when we do it, it means we’re not engaging our core (abdominal) muscles to support our spine. If your belly pushes forward and your lower back pushes backward every time you sit or stand, it can lead to lower back issues.

Fix it by sitting or standing with your back straight and pulling your belly button in toward the lower spine to engage your abdominal muscles. However, refrain from doing it too much, because it may curve the lower spine backward.

Sleeping in a wrong position

Good posture is usually not the first thing that crosses our mind when we talk about health, but remember this: a bad posture and a good posture have one thing in common—it may change your life. So, give your posture a necessary fix!