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Everything You Know About ‘Good Posture’ Is Wrong
Could the way you’re aiming to hold your body be making pain worse?
Head up, shoulders back, pain solved. That’s how it’s supposed to go. But what if everything you’ve been told about “good posture” is wrong, and in fact, is only making your pain worse?
This is the question I’ve been asking myself for months now, ever since — after almost a decade of nagging left shoulder pain that wouldn’t go away — a practitioner I found on YouTube finally healed me.
Seeking medical advice on YouTube? I know, I know. But I was at the end of my rope with my body — and my doctors. For years, every expert I consulted told me the same thing: “You hunch over a computer all day. Of course your shoulder hurts.” One doctor told me the problem was my pathetic upper body strength, so I got really into power yoga. I practiced my posture during my commute by closing my eyes and remembering the mantras I learned in class: “Lengthen the spine” and “squeeze the shoulder blades.” I got massages once a month. But alas, no matter how well I could propel myself from downward dog to chaturanga, no matter how much length I gave my spine or how much I was kneaded, when I looked in the mirror, I saw the same slouchy woman. And my shoulder still ached.
Good posture has always…
