Why Posture Will Continue to be Relevant in 2017

Let me be the first to tell you that no matter what year, posture is not going away anytime soon. With health related problems on the rise and an increase in new technologies, games, and past times, we’re going to need to continue educating others on posture and body alignment.

A few days ago I was taking a walk and I saw some children playing on their phones. Mobile devices are becoming smaller and more portable. I find it amazing how devices are becoming more portable, but it presents another problem. The excessive time children spend on these devices in poor alignment is going to haunt them before they’re older.

Once ago, when you heard posture there was this feeling that it could only impact the older population. You would walk around and see older individuals with their heads protruding forward, chipping forward as they walk with a device to aid them. Now, posture is affecting the entire world in ways we sometimes refuse to accept.

In all my years working in the posture industry, I’m still seeing new terms and conditions applied to the general populace. “Sitting disease” and “text-neck” were never in my vocabulary until a year ago. Sitting disease refers to the idea that all the sitting we’re doing is slowly killing us and the few hours of exercise we do daily isn’t helping because of the all the sitting. Couple the prolonged hours sitting with poor posture and it becomes a nightmare for our neck, lower back, and general health.

In case that didn’t hit home, I’m saying that if you’re sitting for 8 or more hours daily but exercise for an hour, you’re not offsetting the effects of sitting. Also, if you’re not sitting in good posture, you’re hurting yourself. Text neck is the other term you may have heard about. It refers to the symptoms of prolonged phone use while in poor alignment. The symptoms develop from the constant hours of hunching your neck over to send a text or tweet. Remember I spoke briefly about children? How once ago older adults had neck related issues? This is the future of the current generation if we don’t do something about it.

What will happen to these children when they’re older?

As a fitness or health professional, our work is cut out for us this year. It won’t stop. Posture related problems won’t slow down. Lower back pain isn’t the only problem we need to offset anymore. These posture related problems will continue to grow and we have to be the ones to say enough is enough, time to create changes before it’s too late.

Here’s what you can do now 

Talk to your clients, friends, and family about their posture. Lower back pain, forward head posture, text-neck, and whatever term you come across this year are all problems that will continue for years unless we start doing something about it. How many people suffer from back pain? How many more will complain about a nasty ache in the back of their neck?  Show them how to hold and adjust their phones, notepads, tablets, seats etc. You may not think it’s serious, but I assure you it’s serious when they’re sitting in the physician’s office or missing work days because they pulled something.

Let’s do our part, let’s combat the rise of these issues by mentioning them

If you’re unsure about posture correction, let me be the first to introduce you to our NPI-Certified Posture Specialist™ program. You’ll learn how to analyze and correct posture, and how to design safe exercise programs that don’t jeopardize your client’s body alignment. Join the growing movement to combat posture related problems. They won’t go away, and you can’t afford to ignore them for long, you may be moments away from throwing your back out and not realize it.

Take a look at the NPI-Certified Posture Specialist™ program here