Stretches to Improve Your Posture & Reduce Pain

Stretches to Improve Your Posture

Slouching can be detrimental to the health of your back. By sitting up straight, you keep the spine healthy and reduce the risk of a low back pain condition. Furthermore, stretches to improve your posture will also help with this. Let’s take a look.

A study looked at the amount of pressure put on the intervertebral disc‘s in the low back in various positions. There seems to be about 100 pounds of pressure on the disk in the low back per square inch. Laying supine cuts this pressure to 25 pounds per square inch. Now when participants sat forward, the pressure skyrocketed to 275 pounds per square inch. 

Harvard medical school has some recommendations and Stretches to improve your posture to improve and maintain proper posture:

1. Think that there is a straight line that passes through the ears, shoulders, hips, knees, and ankles. Then imagine a strong cord on the top of your head which pulls you upwards.
2. Sit in a chair, relax your arms and shoulders, breathe deeply, and draw the shoulders back and squeeze the scapula together keeping the chin tucked.
3. Stand facing the corner, put your forearms and palms on the walls, and straddle your feet in front of the other. Lean forward until you feel a strong stretch in the chest muscles.
4. Raise your right arm forward to shoulder height and bend. Hold the right elbow with the left hand and pull it across your chest until you feel a strong stretch.

A 2018 study looked at lumbar disc patients. They sat in various types of chairs and found that a kneeling chair keeps the spine the most neutral. This reduces pressure on the disks. In 2020 a study showed that trunk muscle activity increases when patients who have chronic back pain slouch forward.

At Back and Body Medical, we have stretches to improve your posture and we provide further instructions when you come in for relief. Our treatment protocols not only help reduce pain when you come and see us, but we provide the whys and hows on how your injury happened and this education helps you to prevent it happening in the future. Moreover, we normally prescribe exercises and stretches for you to do to help recovery and rehabilitation.

Dr Shan Sivendra MD

Dr Shan Sivendra MD is the founder and medical director of Back and Body Medical in Midtown Manhattan. A board-certified medical doctor, certified acupuncturist, and Director of House Physicians at St. Barnabas Medical Center, Dr Sivendra has been practicing in New York since 1995.

He completed his residency in Internal Medicine at Saint Barnabas Medical Center (affiliated with Mount Sinai School of Medicine) and received the Resident Research Award for three consecutive years.

Dr Sivendra has a background spanning internal medicine, pain management, and conservative spine rehabilitation, and was licensed in both the US and the UK.

At Back and Body Medical, he leads a multidisciplinary team of chiropractors, physical therapists, and acupuncturists dedicated to helping patients recover from pain without surgery or unnecessary medication.