Friday, February 26, 2010

Stretch to help bad, couch-bound posture

Fitness Guru


By CONNIE ARONSON

For the last 16 days, we've seen athletes in the Winter Games live their dreams. Their poise and confidence has inspired us. You can't help but notice the physicality of these young athletes, whether in an interview or pushing towards the limit of human potential in sport at speeds we rarely drive, let alone ski or skate.

However, all this watching of the Games has also meant a lot of couch time for us, and probably not helping our physicality and posture, especially if you never stretch. Athletes like to stretch because it improves performance in sports that require extreme ranges of motion, helps with delayed onset muscle soreness, and psychologically helps in a warm-up.

For most people, though, stretching just feels good. Your posture will noticeably improve. For example, stand tall right now, and lift and lower your arms. Notice how flexible your arms feel. Now slouch, with your head and shoulders rounded forward, and try lifting your arms again. Doesn't feel so great, right?

Stretching allows soft tissue structure to go beyond their available length to increase range of motion. Stretching two to three days a week, preferably five to seven days a week, according to The American College of Sports Medicine, can help not only improve your posture but also reverse muscle imbalances caused by too much couch time and too little stretching.

Compelling research has shown that you could lose up to 50 percent of your flexibility in some joints with aging. The ability to square your shoulders (shoulder abduction) decreases by about 25 percent in elderly subjects, compared to the norms of younger people. Spine mobility also changes with aging, in the ability of your back's ability to bend forward, sideways and back—20 percent, 33 percent, and 50 percent, respectively. Even tight hips can become problematic with aging, as another study showed that 77-year-olds with a history of falling had tighter hips than their healthy non-fallers.

There are many different ways to stretch, and they all help to improve your range of motion. The most common is hold, or static stretching, where the muscle is held at a mild, even tension for 15-30 seconds. ACSM recommends repeating the stretch two to four times. The end goal is to allow the elastic properties of muscle, much like springs, to return to a longer natural resting length. These elastic changes happen following a single stretch.

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Try these two champion stretches to perfect your own posture:

Trap stretch for round shoulders

This stretch, from Dr. Jolie Bookspan, author of Fix Your Own Pain, restores the length to the muscles at the top of your shoulders. Practice it daily to remind you to keep your shoulders from rounding.

Put one hand behind you, as if it is in an opposite back pocket. Stand tall, and tip one ear toward your shoulder. Breathe in. Then, while breathing out, let your opposite hand slide down toward your knee. Imagine a wall is behind you so you stay in vertical alignment. Imagine your shoulders are like a sugar cube melting in hot tea. Hold for a few seconds, breathe in and out and come back up. Switch sides. Notice how much easier it is to stand straight now.

Deep abdominal breathing

Lie on your back with your legs stretched straight, toes pointed up. (Bend one knee if it's more comfortable.) Clasp your hands behind your head, allowing the elbows to touch the floor. Gently draw your abdominals in and upwards, tightening them, right below your belly-button. Allow your chest to expand as you breathe normally for a few breath cycles. Imagine that your ribs swing out like an apron of pleats as you continue to gently keep your abdominals contracted. Repeat for five more breaths.




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