Slouch: Posture panic in modern America
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If you work out a minimal amount and build some core strength / back muscles etc then you'll find that your posture naturally corrects itself whilst walking, that sitting in a chair for extended periods isn't as rough, etc.
Posture muscles are not very well known in the general public. Loss of strength due to aging and sedentary lifestyle makes standing, seating, etc uncomfortable.
I'd say as long as you use all your muscles meaningfully everyday, and don't spend hours in a single position, you're good.
(Yet it's interesting, though hardly relevant for most of the population, that bulky upper back muscles can also look like bad posture. In extreme cases, a very well-developed upper back can even result in a mild hunchbacked appearance.)
More to the point, those posture correction devices actually work. The shoulder straps are okay. The Chinese sell a slim metal device -- I've never seen it in the USA -- that fits around your neck and prevents you from looking down and slouching over. That damn thing is like magic. A few two-hour sessions over a few days can markedly improve your posture.
https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256807449805056.html
If you just consistently do a little bit of strength training then it never gets hard, you just very slowly tail off in absolute strength which is fine.
The average adult probably also isn’t great at learning for example because they just stop once they finish school.
Considering how far you can go with just a few gallons of water, would be nice if there was more innovation in this space to increase accessibility in a safe way. While the bars and weights are one thing, it's ultimately the lack of a rack that makes squats troublesome imo.
https://www.decathlon.co.uk/p/mp/york/york-squat-stands/_/R-...
You have to learn how to bail, but (depending on low vs high bar) you can get pretty confident at it
Europeans are a bit lighter, about 10 pounds on average [1]. Sounds like we could all stand to lose weight before taking up lifting.
People need to set realistic goals, like squatting _no added weight_. Seriously, squat with no bar and get your butt below your knees. That alone is a serious movement, you can get fit with just that.
A few years ago I had been in my best shape (daily exercise, cardio and weight lifting) and started experiencing some forearm pain. I thought it was just from over use from typing but i finally went to a physical therapist and found that the pain came from me hunching over on my computer and putting a lot of strain on my fore arms. The posture I took on was a combination of
1. Just leaning in to my computer because I'd be trying to read text or getting "into" whatever i'm working on
2. My upper back not having the endurance or development that I needed to hold up my upper body.
I had to change my exercise routine to give my muscles more endurance to hold my upper back up while seated.
So yea, exercise is definitely going to help but I wouldn't just say it fixes things automagically for you and you could run into posture issues even when you are doing the right things in life. :)
The CRT monitors were big heavy things that sat on the desk. There effectively wasn't much manoueverabilty in a CRT stand, and only the expensive/later models had them. The CRT was below eye level, so we all tilted our head forward and looked at a downward angle
When flat screen monitors came along, the didn't originally stray far the the height the CRT's were at, but monitor stands slowly started to increase in height over time and things are a bit better now - and the additional options for mounting them in various ways has improved things immensely.
When you're seated or standing at your desk with correct posture, the centre of your monitor should be the same height as your eyes as if you were looking into a mirror. In fact to compensate so many people are looking down at their phone screens we could possibly put the computer monitor even higher to balance things out.
The main thing that would stop me now is the reminder of what everything should look like - the world was very slightly blurred so gradually that I didn't notice, but now I put my glasses on and it's like switching to 4k.
> If you work out a minimal amount and build some core strength / back muscles etc then you'll find that your posture naturally corrects itself [...]
I'm missing something. Doesn't paragraph 2 imply that the assumption made by people (paragraph 1) is not actually a mistake?
In reality I would argue that if you just keep your back, neck etc muscles strong then you will both sit and stand more “properly” without trying (because it will be easier) and also have fewer issues when you don’t.
Recently I decided to find a new hobby and started playing the violin. It was a wakeup call that after just a half hour standing playing the violin with my instructor that my back would basically seize up. It was quite embarrassing! Good thing is I got used to it pretty quick, and thanks to violin practice I stand much more than I used to (and plus I added more back and stretching exercises to my workout). As you say, it really takes a minimal amount to improve your strength.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00219...
My understanding is that this is well established fact. We are literally the ape that stood up. The resulting curved spine is fine for running around chasing water buffalo with the bros but poor for the kind of chronic load bearing and heavy use required to build and maintain civilization. People who subject their backs to chronic hard use generally wear them out at relatively young ages (middle age or so).
My mother was always nagging me to "sit up straight."
These days, I have fairly good posture. Part of it, is because I take a 5K brisk walk, every morning, and that helps me to stay straight. Also, I am not that tall, so I don't need to keep ducking.
I also use a standing desk, and like to stand straight for it.
Of course my own house doesn’t have that issue (you’d think), but the one toilet on the second floor… so even at home you can’t relax the vigilance.
When we lived in West Africa, he was unusually tall.
In East Africa, though, he had competition from the Masai and Watusi folks, who tended to be basketball-player tall.
The thing that prevented a surgery for me was simply fixing my posture, by strengthening the upper back and neck muscles. The most effective exercise I've experienced to achieve this is cable face pulls, with a grip that externally rotates the shoulder. You can see an example here[0].
Non-gym related thing that also helps with posture is getting a standing desk. Its not even necessary to stand, but simply having the ability to change the height of your desk is a massive help for getting the correct sitting posture.
the issue was that i lifted weights to make big number go up, instead of using weights as a support tool to explore muscles in the body
The additional strength didn't do anything to fix my posture. It just let me hold my bad posture for even longer, until another muscle would fail.
You need things like Alexander Technique to retrain how you hold and use your body. And things like myofascial release to undo all the new tension you created from all the lifting with bad posture.
The sports were massively less competitive back then, incomparable to todays variant. The sports as a super competitive and popular past time is recent development. If less people do sport and sport itself is less competitive, less people will get injured.
Also, while people were strong, they were not buffed. The robust build, six pack and big muscles is our ideal. Men were basically thin.
> my joke is that the city kids are soft and grey, but the farm kids look good enough to eat, 2 seconds and you see the healthy glow
Fun fact: cities are overall thinner then rural parts.
But, it takes time and a certain mindset to integrate it into daily life without becoming self-conscious. That's where it came apart for me since I overthink everything. I think others on HN may be the same. As soon as you start to doubt, it stops. Now, I am in the coffin-corner of going through the Alexander steps because they are "in my head" while getting nothing out of them.
Additionally, it is not a way to learn new things and avoid bad habits "by design." It seems to work when people (artists, musicians, dancers, etc. who are the chief customers of Alexander) have trained themselves to do certain things but who have pain from doing those things less than optimally. Reeducating themselves to do things differently may work. I tried to apply it to new movements and failed utterly.