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Of course proper posture helps back & shoulder pain, relieves headaches, relieves tension, prevents injury, makes you look better, makes people respect you more, helps you to see over people in a riot...

But improving your posture is a great way to learn how to train your subconscious. Posture is primarily a non-conscious function, and poor posture is primarily due to weak nervous system pathways and underdeveloped parts of the brain. Not because of weak muscles, laziness, etc. Our brains are plastic so it can be fixed - but most people don't try, they just pull their shoulders back and puff their chest out.

I sort of had a posture improvement journey over the last couple years and it's a worthwhile endeavor. Now I judge people with poor posture, which is most people, probably most of you. A good place to start is posturedirect.com.

Of course proper posture helps back & shoulder pain, relieves headaches, relieves tension, prevents injury, makes you look better, makes people respect you more, helps you to see over people in a riot... But improving your posture is a great way to learn how to train your subconscious. Posture is primarily a non-conscious function, and poor posture is primarily due to weak nervous system pathways and underdeveloped parts of the brain. Not because of weak muscles, laziness, etc. Our brains are plastic so it can be fixed - but most people don't try, they just pull their shoulders back and puff their chest out. I sort of had a posture improvement journey over the last couple years and it's a worthwhile endeavor. Now I judge people with poor posture, which is most people, probably most of you. A good place to start is posturedirect.com.

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[–] [deleted] • 1 pt

Care to share some of your tips?

I constantly catch myself with poor posture at the desk which eventually translates into upright posture issues, but I never feel like my constant 'reminding' myself is helping.

What helped you to solidify the neural pathways for optimal posture?

[–] [deleted] • 0 pt

It's hard to say because everyone is different.

I had a common issue, and so do most people - an inability to engage the serratus muscles, due to a damaged long thoracic nerve. The serratus holds your shoulder blade in place, if they are weak your shoulders sit higher and tilt forward. Very common in desk jobs.

It is repaired through serratus activation exercises, you can look them up. At first it felt like I was doing nothing at all, now I can tense my serratus like tensing my bicep or any other muscle. And I have much better awareness/feedback on where my shoulder blades are sitting.

posturedirect.com has all the main exercises, the guy there is a pro.

[–] [deleted] • 0 pt

Yeah I have the website on another tab, I plan on going through it and seeing what exercises I can find and if any match with the new physio encyclopedia I just ordered. It doesn't ship for a couple weeks though, so I'll be on that website until then.

I have a decent awareness of my body in motion, so I'm able to tell which muscles are weak and in what positions they become compromised - I just lack the knowledge to translate that into viable exercises to target those muscles.