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There is never a good substitute for movement, but keeping active can be challenging. For many people, going out for a run or taking time to perform a full workout can be daunting, especially if this is not a part of their usual routine. Here are some ideas to get you away from your desk, your couch, or anywhere that keeps you in a static posture for too long... There are a few quick and easy ways to add some movement to your day, starting with something as simple as boiling the kettle or just getting a drink from the fridge or water cooler. It only takes 2-3 minutes, so challenge yourself to see if you can complete these three exercises before going back to sitting down. You can focus on one each day, or work through a different one each time.  1. Challenge your balance.
Standing on one leg is something many of us assume we can do, yet rarely take the time to check. This is an essential skill that can deteriorate without being noticed until everyday activities, such as getting dressed, are impacted. Being able to stand on one leg is important for putting on shoes, trousers and reduced balance can be a risk factor for falls. Start by seeing if you can stand on one leg with your eyes open for the entire time a kettle is boiling, or time yourself with a stopwatch. Test both legs, making sure you are close to a bench that you can use to support yourself. To increase the difficulty, try balancing with your eyes closed, then progress to balancing on your tiptoes. If you can balance on your tiptoes, with your eyes closed, then you can ask your physio for more suggestions. 2. Heel Raises Start by keeping your knees slightly bent and lift both heels off the ground at the same time. You can begin with repetitions of 5, have a quick rest then repeat. Challenge yourself to increase the speed of your heel raises and see how many you can fit into your 2 minute workout. As you bend your knees, aim to keep your knees over your second toe. If you feel this is a little too easy, you can progress to single-leg heel raises, which will also improve your balance! You can start a daily competition with the people in your home or workplace to see who can complete the most repetitions in a set time period. 3. Squats Squats are a great exercise to keep your large muscles working. You can start with 5 shallow squats, aiming to slowly increase your number and progressively squat to a lower position. As with heel raises, when you start to find squats to be less of a challenge, you can move to single-leg squats. Don’t hesitate to ask your physio or posture specilaist for tips on how else you can stay active at home or in the workplace.
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Many of us spend more time at our desks than any other place in our waking hours. While the risk of injury from sitting down can seem unlikely, spending hours in a poorly set up workspace can place a lot of pressure on your body and lead to overuse injuries or postural pain. Below are a few tips that can help you set up your workstation better.  Your Chair
The height of your chair is a good place to begin. Ideally, your feet should be flat on the floor, and if you can adjust the height of the chair, your thighs should be parallel to the floor. If your chair has armrests, they should be low enough to allow your elbows to sit comfortably between 90-110 degrees of bend and rest by the side of your body. A small cushion or rolled-up towel may be added to the back of the chair to add support to the lower back to help prevent slouching. If you are unable to adjust your chair and it is too high, you can use a footrest to allow your feet to rest comfortably. Your Desk The height of your desk should be set so that your arms can rest comfortably at the keyboard and hands, wrists and forearms can sit in a neutral position, parallel to the floor. Where possible, put everything you need within easy reach and alternate days using your mouse and phone with different hands on different days (if you can do this with your non-dominant hand!). Your Screen The height of your computer should be raised so that the top of the screen is around eye level. Allowing your neck to rest in a neutral position can help to prevent neck pain and headaches. Ideally, if you can set the screen to be 20-40 inches away from your face, this will reduce strain on your eyes while reading. Some other tips Being comfortable is extremely important for productivity and focus. If you are struggling with pain, your work will often suffer. Even joint stiffness and muscle tightness can disrupt your workflow, so taking the time to adjust your workstation can save you countless hours in the long run and prevent painful overuse injuries. Taking active breaks from sitting to move and stretch can help to maintain muscle and joint health, which can be compromised from being in the same posture too long. You can set a timer or make the effort to take phone calls and video meetings standing, rather than always sitting. You can speak to your physiotherapist or posture specialist for more personalised advice on your workplace setup. Over 80 percent of Australians will experience back pain at some point in their lives. Often, this pain is because of fatigued and overworked back muscles. Why do these muscles in our back get so tired and sore? We have forgotten the proper ways to sit, stand, move, bend, drive, cook, and brush our teeth. Instead of using our legs and spine properly, our sitting lifestyle has brought us to new levels of bending, slouching, and living in chronic hip flexion.  This new lifestyle leads to the incorrect use of many muscles, one of the most important being the gluteal muscles, or “glutes”. The combination of these 3 large muscles (gluteus maximus, medius, and minimus) is extremely powerful. These muscles are integral to actions such as climbing stairs, getting out of a car, and standing us upright after bending over. Without the correct use of these muscles, we “overuse” the muscles in our middle and lower back to compensate. Awakening the gluteals in a productive way can take a lot of pressure off those poor back muscles. Let the back relax while the glutes do their proper job. A combination of targeted stretches and exercises can help bring these important gluteal muscles back to life. Here are 3 exercises you can do in the privacy of your own home, with no equipment, that can help get your glutes (and hamstrings) fired up again: 1. Pelvic curl and bridge- 
Clam shell- 
Single leg deadlift (more advanced)- 
And that's it! Some simple exercises you can do at home to help take the pressure off your lower back. Of course, if you are having ongoing concerns with back pain, it is always best to get checked by a health professional. Good luck! According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, in 2016 there were 3.79 million students enrolled in schools across the country. Many of these students carry their backpacks or school bags overloaded or poorly fitted, resulting in a variety of injuries including neck pain, muscle spasms, tingling hands, headaches and lower back pain. As parents, there are a number of important issues you need to know in order to prevent backpack related injuries and promote spinal health in your kids. When choosing a new backpack, it’s recommended you select ergonomically designed features that enhance safety and comfort. Importantly, a number of Australian and International health bodies recommend that the weight of a child’s backpack should not exceed 10 to 12 percent of their own body weight.  Choosing the Backpack: Here are six tips on choosing the best pack for your child-
Once you have taken the proper steps in choosing, packing and wearing the school backpack, please continue to monitor your child. It is extremely important to encourage your child or teenager to tell you about any pain or discomfort that may be caused by a heavy backpack. If necessary, talk to your child and their teachers to ensure that what your child is being carried back and forth to school is really required each day. We know that posture and spinal health is impacted by a combination of factors including good muscle control, strength and flexibility. So, get your child moving with swimming, dance, martial arts, gymnastics, football, netball, soccer or any other organized activity. Becoming involved with sporting activities helps develop muscle tone as well as self-confidence, which can also influence posture. I hope this helps you in your important role of caring for your child or teenager’s spine during their school years. If you have any further questions or would like any further advice you can contact us at [email protected] 0 Comments Forward>>
If I asked a group of people if they suffered from any pain or discomfort, the majority would say ‘yes’. Pain is so common these days and I constantly encounter complaints related to the lower back. Without some solid prevention strategies, the number of people suffering from this problem will continue to grow. According to the United States Department of Health and Human Services, a study examining mortality or poor health as a result of diseases placed low back pain as the sixth most troublesome condition in 1990. As of 2010, low back pain jumped to third place. Most other western nations are no different. You read that correctly, as of 2010, low back pain ranked 3rd!  I'm going to jump right to it and mention 3 habits you need to change if you want to reduce lower back pain. While this isn’t the only list, nor does it completely cover everything involved it’s a great start to get you on a mission toward a more comfortable, pain free future.
1. You sit too often Most of us know that sitting isn’t our friend. The problem is we still do it for long periods because life often demands it. You may sit during your meal times, on the ride to work, and while at your job. Like many, you may be sitting for 8-10 hours or more per day. If you’re concerned about your lower back, you need to start standing and moving around more often. If you are sitting in poor alignment for this amount of hours, your risk of incurring a serious problem increases. 2. You exercise with poor form or not at all Whenever you exercise, pay attention to the way you’re performing your techniques and the position of your body. There’s a good chance the way you’re exercising and the kinds of activities you might be doing in the gym are contributing to an insidious problem. If you don’t exercise, this is your invitation to get cracking because exercise in proper alignment is beneficial for maintaining the integrity of your spine, as well as the rest of your body. It can also improve coordination, and develop proper posture and muscle balance. 3. You don’t pay attention to your body alignment during your daily routine Sleeping, eating, washing the dishes, walking, and a host of other regular activities are often done in poor alignment. You should start thinking more about what you do on a consistent basis. What position do you sleep in? When you eat do you hunch forward? What is your body doing while you’re working? Pay special attention to anything you do daily, and mind your body alignment. While this short list is not a call for you to scrutinize every little activity, I implore you to pay closer attention to what you’re doing and start making changes today. Lower back pain is unpleasant and far too common. Small but regular changes can make a big difference! Do I use mobile devices? Of course I do. As a posture professional however, I try to be deliberate about my posture while I use them, because I know full well the consequences if I don’t. I’m trained to look out for this while I text, check emails or Facebook, or even play games, but your children aren’t. Anyone using a mobile device for long hours is more than likely allowing their body alignment to suffer in a big way.  How many hours do our children and teenagers spend on these devices? I remember a time where kids would go to an arcade and stand up to play games. Then we shifted to home systems where we would sit or lay for a few hours and then eventually go outside to play. As time moved on, games have become much more involved and addictive. Now, games have also become much more mobile and this is not necessarily a good thing. On top of all this, nearly everything else can be accessed on a mobile device as well, from social media, to messaging and so much more. There is now more reason than ever to spend time staring at a small, hand held screen.
From the eyes of a posture specialist, I notice how young people look while they’re playing. Head hung over, neck flexed, shoulders slouched, focused solely on the game or screen and not much else. The obvious consequence that children are setting themselves up for posture related musculoskeletal problems and they don’t even know it, really bothers me! In only a few years, many of the children of this generation are going to have serious postural abnormalities. The long hours spent on mobile devices while in poor alignment will be a major factor that caused this. Can you imagine a child incurring forward head posture, “text neck”, or thoracic kyphosis before their 20s? It’s becoming a reality. These are issues that adults battle in their later years- no child should have to worry about visiting a doctor or therapist because of persistent neck pain or headaches. I am seeing far too much of this already in our physiotherapy clinics, and have even experienced it at home with my own kids. Mine are just fortunate they have parents that can educate them on what’s going on and make them more aware of their posture and the role it plays in their aches and pains. So, what can you do? Understand that what we’re talking about here is serious, and it extends into all excessive use of mobile devices while in poor alignment. We can start impacting change by actively discussing it with family, friends and colleagues. Particularly, if you or someone you know has or works with children, really open this discussion. Here are some points you can bring up with them and discuss now:
Whether it’s at home, in the car, or at school, our children need us to help them with this. It’s the responsibility of all of us to look out for their posture before it turns into a serious problem. By becoming more aware and openly discussing these points within your family and social circles, we bring more attention to it and even better, brainstorm some simple ideas to help make a positive change. Believe me, a little can go a long way here, and we really can significantly influence the path of our children’s health. This is an issue I am very passionate about (in case you hadn’t noticed!) and I intend to make a difference to as much of our community as I can. Please browse the rest of our site here at Better Posture Perth to learn a little more about these issues. If you have any questions at all, you can contact me directly at [email protected] or call the clinic on 08 9446 7017. I hope this helps you learn more and begin making some positive changes, for you, and for those you care about. What if I told you that your posture can cause minor aches and pains or long term pain, discomfort, and sometimes loss of function? As you lean forward on the edge of your seat to continue reading this, your shoulders may be slouching while your head might be shifting slightly forward. Do you do this often?  If you consistently read or look at a screen in this posture, or if you find yourself hanging your head when you walk, you could develop a common musculoskeletal condition called forward head posture (FHP).
Have you ever seen someone with their head and neck leaning forward? You may see it in older adults more, but with the routine activities we perform (e.g. mobile phone usage), it’s becoming more common. If you perform activities regularly in poor alignment it alters your nerve and muscle pathways, which will cause the head and neck to adapt more readily to FHP. Some muscles will become stronger and tighter while others will become weaker and more stretched. The nerves could then be affected as well; even getting “pinched” or compressed. This does not occur overnight, it happens gradually. The more you perform an activity in poor alignment the less likely you are to notice you’re doing it and before long you’ll have FHP and the symptoms to go along with it. Some of you reading this may already have symptoms but never realized it until now. Here are three questions to ask yourself regularly to help you avoid forward head posture: What kind of posture do I have while I’m at work? Whatever you do for a living, do it in good posture. You spend many hours of your life at work so this is one of the places you’ll need to be the most vigilant. Adjust your seat and laptop/computer so the top of the screen is at eye level- you shouldn’t feel like you have to strain or hunch forward to read something on the screen. It’s important you get a handle on this and help clients make the necessary adjustments. Am I hanging my head/lurching my neck forward when reading, playing video games, or on my phone? When it comes to activities involving books, mobile devices, or computer screens, you may have a bad habit of staring and not realizing the position your neck is in. Let’s do a small activity, where are you right now and what is your body doing? Pay attention to your head and neck. Are you guilty of the problem? Going forward, I want you to work on your awareness. When holding your mobile device, hold it higher and away from your face so it’s comfortable. Use your eyes instead of leaning your neck forward or tilting your chin downward when on your phone. Check your body alignment when playing video games, especially if you slouch. If you’re reading books, pay attention to how you’re sitting or lying, and where your head and neck are positioned. Remember, you do these activities often, so make sure you habitually do them in good alignment. When I exercise or perform activities, do I have poor mechanics and don’t realize it? Have you ever seen someone performing an exercise and they’re pushing their head and neck forward, maybe with the increased effort? I’ve seen too many people jut their chin and head forward while performing exercises. My point here is when you exercise you must pay attention to what your body is doing. Let’s make some changes now by correcting our poor habits. I hope you pass this message along because there are too many people who probably have symptoms and don’t realize what’s causing them. Symptoms could be as simple as neck pain or headaches, or more complex than that. While every ache or pain isn’t caused by poor posture, it’s still worth checking your head and neck to ensure they’re in proper alignment. Ask yourself these questions and keep correcting yourself where possible. Almost everyone will experience lower back and/or neck pain at some point in their lives, even if just in the form of a slight neck twinge after sleeping in an odd position. Spinal pain of the thoracic region (the upper & middle part of your back) is less common, however you might be surprised to discover how important this part of the body can be when it comes to pain and injury.  What is it?
The thoracic region refers to the part of the spine that is surrounded by the rib cage. It consists of 12 vertebrae with discs that sit between each of them. The thoracic spine isn’t an area that you might associate much with movement, however, this area can account for a surprising amount of flexibility, particularly in rotation. With joint attachments both between each side of the 12 vertebrae and a rib on either side, the thoracic spine has almost more individual joints than you can count. If each of these joints is not regularly moved through their full range they can tighten up and lose flexibility. This stiffness can become quite significant over time. Why is it important? Many people may not even notice this lack of movement, primarily because the neck and lower back provide much more range and can usually compensate for any loss of thoracic flexibility to complete everyday tasks. When there is no movement occurring in the thoracic region, this means that the structures of the joints in other regions are pushed closer to their limits of range, particularly during rotation. This results in more compression and stress on these joints and the structures surrounding them, such as nerves, blood vessels and muscles. Thoracic stiffness can be a significant risk factor for neck and lower back pain. This can also reduce the mobility of the chest wall, which can result in less efficient breathing mechanics and, in extreme cases, even reduced exercise tolerance. Thoracic spine movement is aslo important for normal shoulder function, as well as maintaining good posture. How can physiotherapy help? Your physiotherapist is able to assess your thoracic mobility and help you with treatments to improve your range of motion, both with manual therapy and home exercises. They may even help improve your thoracic flexibility as part of a treatment plan for neck and lower back pain. A posture improvement exercise program is also often required to improve the alignment of your thoracic spine and alleviate joint compression and muscle tightness. According to a 2019 national survey, 47 percent of people in the USA say they are concerned about their posture and its impact on their health. Even though slumping over in a desk chair and walking around with rounded shoulders may feel more comfortable, and easier, than learning the best way to correct your posture, it's not doing your health any favours. Slouching can make you feel fatigued when you're simply sitting, lead to headaches and pain, or cause numbness and tingling in the legs and arms. When you're sitting for longer periods of time, you also start leaning forward and compressing the diaphragm. You then won't be getting proper air and oxygen, which is part of the reason why we feel fatigued. But it can also lead to more serious health implications — slumping over can wear away at the spine, making it more prone to injury, cause back, neck, and shoulder pain, decrease flexibility and misalign the entire musculoskeletal system, according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM). Why? Think of your head like a 5 kilogram bowling ball — when you lean forward, the gravitational pull on the head increases, which can cause the weight of the head to put up to 5 times that amount of pressure on your neck and shoulders. Even a slight misalignment can place unnecessary strain on your body.  7 points to consider when standing upright:
Step 1: Start standing with feet shoulder width apart. Distribute weight equally on the balls of both feet. Step 2: Gently pull your lower abdominal muscles up and in, as if moving the belly button toward the backbone, to achieve a neutral spine. (Another way to picture this is to imagine slightly tucking the stomach in.) Step 3: Gently lower shoulder blades back and down as if tucking them into your pants pockets. Step 4: Adjust your body so knees are pointed forward and relaxed or slightly bent. Align your knees over feet, hips over knees, and shoulders over hips. Step 5: Let arms hang naturally at your sides. Step 6: Look straight forward and keep your head level so that earlobes are above shoulders. Avoid pushing your head forward, backward, or to the side. Step 7: Scratch the crown of the head to bring awareness there. Picture an arrow shooting straight upwards from that point on the head. This visualization will help in lifting the chin so that it is parallel to the floor and in ensuriing that your body is standing tall. At Better Posture Perth, as well as analysing and optimising your posture, we regularly discuss the importance of regular, general physical activity. To go further into this topic, here's some interesting guidelines from the World Health Organisation (WHO)...  WHO defines physical activity as any bodily movement produced by skeletal muscles that requires energy expenditure. Physical activity refers to all movement including during leisure time, for transport to get to and from places, or as part of a person’s work. Both moderate- and vigorous-intensity physical activity improve health.
Popular ways to be active include walking, cycling, wheeling, sports, active recreation and play, and can be done at any level of skill and for enjoyment by everybody. Regular physical activity is proven to help prevent and manage noncommunicable diseases such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes and several cancers. It also helps prevent hypertension, maintain healthy body weight and can improve mental health, quality of life and well-being. Adults aged 18–64 years recommendations:
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