How To Improve Your Posture: The Importance of Posture and How To Really Change It

Just look around. The signs of bad posture are all around us. We slouch, we waddle, we sag. We collapse into our chairs and hunch over our desks and computers. More and more of us are looking crooked, rounded, and just generally out-of-line at earlier and earlier ages.

But there is more to posture than just how we look. While this book addresses the appearance aspects of posture in great detail, our posture or body alignment is also intimately connected with function, with how easy it is for us to do all the things we want or need to do at work, at school or just in day-to-day living. Alterations in our posture also directly contribute to many of the muscle and joint problems, and the subsequent pain and disability that are affecting so many of us at younger and younger ages.

“How To Improve Your Posture—The Importance of Posture and How To Really Change It” is written by a physician in an easy to read style with numerous illustrations to make the basic concepts both fun and simple to understand.

The first few chapters present background information on why and how posture is important. The principles underlying the function of our muscles, joints, and alignment are simple and can be understood by a child. But there is more to correcting posture than just pulling your shoulders back and standing up straight. This book explains why.

Following this is a self-assessment where you get to take a close look at your own posture, to find any areas where your individual posture might need help. Then exercises are prescribed in menus to help correct specific alterations in posture. If your back or shoulders are rounded forward, there are exercises to correct that. If your pelvis is tilted or you always lean to one side, there are exercises that can help. The more than one hundred simple exercises that are prescribed in this book may be differ¬ent from other exercises you might be used to. The goal of the exercises isn’t to run you through your paces, but rather to slowly, gradually correct areas of stiffness and weakness and bring your body back into alignment. Simple changes in your posture can have dramatic effects on both how you look and how you feel.

This book is for anyone who doesn’t like his or her posture. If your back or shoulders are rounded, if you’re slouching, leaning or collapsing, if you look older than you should, then this book can help. Also, if you hurt in your muscles or joints, this could be due to problems with your body’s alignment. A small change in your posture may get rid of a pain that has been bothering you for a long time, and prevent it from getting worse. Or if you aren’t able to physically do all the things that you used to do, if you are becoming more limited in your movement, this could also be due to your posture being off. This book can help. Finally, if you just want to maintain your posture as you grow older, this book can give you the tools to do that.

Paul D’Arezzo, M.D. is a board-certified emergency physician who after years of seeing countless patients with muscle and joint complaints, became interested in the effects of posture on appearance and function. Combining his extensive medical background with other disciplines, he presents a compelling case for the importance of posture and how to correct it.

This book is a completely rewritten, revised edition of the author’s earlier book, “Posture Alignment—The Missing Link in Health and Fitness.”