My mother lives 600 miles away, and I swear I can hear her voice at least once a day telling me to “Stop slouching!” Because of my large breasts, early on being ashamed of them and later due to their weight, my posture has worsened through the years. I will never forget being in seventh grade, quietly sitting in class wearing a yellow shirt with fruit printed all over it and having a boy point at me and scream, “Look at the melons! Look at the melons!” I slouched my way through four grades after that. Sigh.
Jerk.
But I digress.
No matter how great your bra fits or how perfectly your dress hugs your curves, you can never look your best while hunched over.
I’m determined to correct my posture because severe slouching makes me look like I’ve just escaped from being imprisoned in the catacombs and because it’s painful. If I’m not using proper posture while running, I pay for it the next day with serious back and neck pain.
I am correcting this problem as we speak. When I was in my late teens, I was told that if I kept my abs tight throughout the day it would help me stand up straight. It actually worked! I remember it being difficult at first, and if it was difficult then, you can imagine how hard it is after giving my abs a 20-year hiatus! Let’s just say things get a little shaky around here! The key is to start contracting them for short periods of time throughout the day and to gradually extend that amount of time. I’m not going to say it might be uncomfortable because it will absolutely be uncomfortable! It takes a long time, but eventually it does become habit.
I’m curious. What methods do you use to correct bad posture?
Chicken and egg, I think. Using good posture (neutral spine I think most therapists call it) strengthens your abs. Using your muscles to hold you upright does feel unnatural and a little painful at first, but slouching, as you mention, is worse.
When I hear woman say having large breasts makes their backs hurt, I think, no, slouching does. After all, we have this 8-9 pound bowling ball sitting on a thin stalk above our shoulders–holding it in place is good, and letting it jut forward puts strain on muscles.
But my method is similar to yours: my mother’s voice in the back of my head!! Plus the backache I get from slouching is a good reminder.
I agree with the “chicken and egg” comment. For me, the slouching was an emotional response to a comment made about my breasts. I slouched out of shame and as my breasts got larger my posture was worse, weakening the muscles I should have been using to stand up straight. The bigger my breasts got the harder it seems to physically correct what started off as an issue caused by emotions. As you said, chicken and egg.
Strengthening your core helps so much!
Over the last year my trainer and I have brought me from a contracted leg, and hunched frame (somewhat typical of hunters transitioning to dressage) to sitting much taller and lengthening my resting leg ~3â€. A good part of this came from a lot of core work and lots of all-over stretching (plus my trainer reminding me while in the saddle.) I tend to mix yoga, Ab RipperX, stability ball, and dancing on top of my regular cardio and riding. I wish my knees could hold up regular dancing again, that does such a great job on posture and core strength.
Katie I agree 100%. I’m training for my next half marathon and am doing P90x yoga on my “rest day” and incorporating ab ripper into my strength training day. I just have to stick to my training routine and the results will come.
I am currently working on this too. Lifting weights specifically to strengthen muscles of upper and mid back and stretching pec (chest) muscles as they are shortened/tightened due to hunching.
It’s great that you’re working on this too! I’d live to hear about your progress in the future.
I’m doing another round of physical therapy to work on this right now, I tend to go for a few sessions about once a year. At first, we worked on strengthening my upper back, shoulders, and neck because the muscles weren’t actually strong enough to hold my head up straight all day. Now it’s more detailed stuff, like that I tilt my head backwards and also have it too far forwards. I can tell now when it’s aligned because it hurts less.
Meri, thank you for sharing your experience with the group. This is the push I needed to add neck strengthening to my routine.
Having strong abs is good, but aiming to tighten your abs for your entire waking life is…really not a good idea. Having that tight knot in your middle is not going to help your posture, your digestive system, or any negative feelings you may have about your body. Also, it may flatten your lumbar curve, which is essential for the health of your spine. By all means, do not protrude your belly, but aiming to harden it all the time isn’t helpful either. Instead, if you need a one-phrase cue, you can try lifting your chest — not always easy for busty ladies, but that is what has to happen to correct slouching.
If you have posture problems, by all means do yoga (i’m a yoga teacher 🙂 but please, not P90X yoga. Find an alignment-based yoga class such as Iyengar, or try something like Feldenkrais or Alexander Technique. P90X is great for workouts, but they don’t know from yoga.
What I like about this post is the discussion of posture as it relates to body issues and large breasts specifically; that’s a super interesting conversation. However, I worry that the tightening your abs thing, which is not a thing, is the only piece of solid advice in the post and that someone would try to start doing it to correct their posture. It’s really bad advice and I hope you consider doing more research and amending the post.
Mel, I appreciate your input and will absolutely “research” your points. I never want to put myself out there as an expert on this matter and the column only represents MY experiences. I would say that I used this method successfully for 4 years or so without any negative effects. Being conscious of having a “tight”, strong core was helpful to me. As I said though, I will look into what you’ve mentioned as I would hate for my “advice” to be misunderstood and harmful.
I slouched because of the size of my breasts, how early I got them and because I u was the tallest girl in class for years. I still slouch because it is habit and after two babies my back hurts everyday all day. It hurts right now. I just got used to the pain. Thus lady who used visceral manipulation took pictures of me without clothes to see and show me my posture and I was horrified. I look like Golly, or we’ll at least that S shape. She was great but at $150 a session I couldn’t afford her. I’m in so much pain from picking up my six month old even though I’m on 25 that I think will try focusing on my posture. Yoga was also suggested to me and I certainly remember it helping in all aspects. It’s also much more enjoyable and not painless than forcing it. Thanks for the great post.
P. S. That boy was awful.
Idk so many typos from typing in the dark on a phone… I meant Gollum.
Ugh, I literally feel your pain. I hope you are able to find a yoga studio/ program to help you. If time is an issue, you may be able to find a Mommy and me type class where you can bring the baby along. During my children’s early years, finding the time I could be away from them was difficult so I relied on workout DVDs. I’m not sure if you saw Mel’s comment above. She references a few types of yoga that she recommends and as an instructor, is a wonderful resource for us to have in our “community”.
And yes, that boy was awful!
Thanks for the love!
With my dressage background I never slouched much but not with very little physical exercise and an office job I feel my posture is not strong and my shoulders are rigid and the front heaviness is not helping.
As I’m a terrible gym goer I opted to start FUSTRA personal training after hearing plenty of enthusiastic recommendations and it is every bit as good as people told me.
“Fustra – method is a functional training method. This method is based on strengthening body weakness with correct positions and movements. The principal objectives of the method are to improve the range of motion, muscle balance, posture and the activation of deep muscles. ”
It is incredibly simple to do and it focuses on doing the exercises in the correct posture and is far harder than it looks!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sssXdCuZHtw
Thanks Tina! This looks very promising. Going to do more research on it.