Improving Poor Posture
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Practice Yoga
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Yoga is a terrific exercise for improving your posture. Strengthening and straightening the spine is one of the primary benefits of this regimen. Achieving perfect or even nearly perfect alignment in any specific yoga pose requires the same kind of straight lines of the body that affect good posture. A commitment to a consistent, 2-to-3-day-per-week yoga workout can produce dramatic changes in your posture within a month because it exercises the muscles that you use to stand up straight.
Lift Weights
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One cause of poor posture is weak muscles. Yoga can strengthen muscles, but it is not for everybody. Another means to strengthening those droopy back and shoulder muscles is to hit the gym or buy exercise equipment. Shoulder shrugs, bent-over rows and lat pulls on equipment like Nautilus are excellent choices for developing back muscles.
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Wear Proper Footwear
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Footwear can be a major contributor to poor posture. High heels, especially, throw off your body's sense of balance because they require you to shift your body's alignment to meet the heels' balance needs. High heels are perhaps the worst offender when it comes to developing bad posture habits, but any shoe that causes your center of gravity to unnaturally shift should be avoided.
Quit Slouching
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Bad posture often occurs simply as a result of bad habits. You begin to walk with a slouch or hunch, and over time it simply becomes a second thought. If your bad posture is not the result of weak muscles or spinal problems, improving it is just a matter of catching yourself slouching and forcing yourself to walk upright. The more you can force yourself to walk upright, the greater your chance of creating a new, better habit.
Get Up!
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Poor posture is often the result of too much sitting and not enough activity. If your work or leisure habits have you in a seated position for extended periods of time, especially if the chair you are using is not ergonomically designed for good posture, make sure you get up and walk around and stretch for a few minutes at least every other hour. Poor posture is a natural outgrowth of muscular entropy, so the best way to avoid bad posturing in the future is to keep those muscles strong and vital.
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