5 Tips for Improving Posture and Reversing Forward Head Posture: Tip #2 — Building Core Strength

Building core strength is the second important step to improve your posture. If you’re struggling with bad posture, you have probably had this experience: it’s easy to straighten up and stand tall, but it’s exceedingly hard to stay standing straight and tall for more than–say 10 seconds.

The reason? Well, as we shall see in later posts, there are many, but a major one is lack of core strength. Proper core strength is what gives your body the support it needs to stay in good posture, not just hold it momentarily until you sink back into your usual bad posture. We once read somewhere that the force of gravity pulls on the body at a rate of 33 lbs per square inch. That’s a lot of downward pull! Without proper core strength, there is nothing left to hold your body up other than the spine. Without core strength, the weight of the body begins to hang on the spine, and this gradually pulls the spine down, exaggerating its curves and pulling you into a slump. The result: chronic bad posture. We see that a lot in people who don’t have a regular fitness program and don’t have the posture support afforded by strong core muscles: as they reach their 40s and 50s, the spine gradually begins to give in to the pull of gravity, the upper part of the chest caves in and they slump into a forward head posture. If not halted early on, this can easily develop into hyperkyphosis, that unflattering dowager’s hump, over time.

While there’s lots of information out there about building core strength, most of it focuses on creating abdominal strength. The kind of core strength you need to improve posture and prevent forward head posture is not the kind you get from building that ripped six-pack ab look. The core strength training needed to reverse bad posture must involve all core muscles. And, for proper posture support, the training you engage in must also train the muscles to work together in a coherent, integrated manner.

So what exactly are the core muscles involved in improving posture? Your core muscles consist not just of the abdominals, but of your entire trunk musculature: The muscles of the spine (back extensors) the muscles between the vertebrae (the multifidi), and of course, the abdominals. Most abdominal strengthening focuses on the more superficial abdominal muscles, but for people who want to build posture support and reverse bad posture the abdominal that’s most important is the Transversus Abdominis, the deepest of the abdominal muscles. For best results, corrective posture exercises must engage the whole trunk musculature in an integrated, holistic way.

The great thing about strenghtening core muscles is that it will do a lot more than simply help reverse bad posture. A weak core is one of the leading causes of back pain, especially lower back pain. The core is also the center for all your movements and the seat of power for your entire body. Building a strong core affects us not just physiologically by creating greater posture support and preventing back pain, mentally and emotionally even, a strong core affects our inner well-being and strength.

Strengthening the core should never be a painful and tedious workout–if you hate crunches, you’re not alone. We’ve collected some fun resources that can help make core strengthening and corrective posture exercises more enjoyable and even let you do it while you sit at your desk at work. Follow this link to view our selection of posture support and core strengthening resources.

For more information on core strengthening, also see this article.

Getting to the Core of Exercise

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