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Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Be a turtle, not a chicken (Part 2)!

So yesterday we discussed how chicken's have bad posture with their heads poked out and we should instead model ourselves after the turtle who is able to tuck his head back pulling his chin in the way we learned to here.  Those of you who know me from way back know about my secret shame of my colored driving past from my younger years.  Between the ages of 16 and 18 I forget the exact number but I was in like 6 car accidents, most of which were in the snow and all but one determined to be the other persons fault.  My Mom always pointed out however it doesn't do me any good if it's someone else's fault if you are dead! True, point taken.  I was so sure I was a fine driver it was everyone else who needed to change (because I was a teenager and I knew everything right?) but basically at that point I decided she must be right, I needed to be more careful.  So now I am a seriously nervous snow driver.  This year a couple weeks into snow season I was driving to work one beautiful white slippery morning and I thought "man my neck is killing me!" and unlike the general population who may blow it off for a certain period of time I went into PT analysis mode and realized with my white knuckle kung-fu death grip on the steering wheel I had my head in full chicken mode.  Sort of like this picture:


 But I don't see any snow on the ground, she has no excuse!

The moral of my shameful driving story being revealed, just because I know better doesn't always mean I do better, OBVIOUSLY!!! (As we will see even more exaggerated in future posts!) So I didn't really give you the perfect easy breezy posture correction yesterday, really easy as 1, 2, 3! So here it goes....

1. Whether sitting or standing start with your lower back, move your lower back in and out until you get a nice rounded in curve.  (Most people slouch so they need to accentuate this a little more however there are those who have too much arch in which case you may need to back off a little so yours is more neutral but you are more of the exception).

   

 2. Next the shoulders. Squeeze your shoulder blades back together and then relax, repeat 3-4 x, on the last time make sure that when you relax they stay back but are relaxed down.  In other words your shoulders should be back but you shouldn't be so stiff and tight like you are in the military or feel like your shoulders are squeezed up to your ears or something.

   


 3. The head, that's easy you already learned that, just do the neck retraction that you learned here. There you go, consider yourself, posture corrected! Now if you are like the majority of people I put through that you are holding that position and thinking, this feels really awkward! Yup that's right, that's because you are (and I and all of mankind except my cute example from yesterday) are habitual slouchers.  Now a bunch of you are horrified and insulted.  What do you mean? I have great posture! Really? Then this position should feel completely natural to you.  If not you, like the rest of us, may need a little reconfiguration, it takes time and practice to feel natural and the more you maintain it the better you feel and the easier it gets.  So remember, be a....




NOT A...



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