As school gets into full swing we find ourselves being more active. You may have ramped up the training for your half marathon, gotten back into running outside, or you are planning a hiking trip. Sports for the kids are starting to pick up as well, tournaments, practices, and showcases are dominating the schedule. Everyone, no matter what activity they are in, would love to increase their speed, power and performance. Simple improvements in our posture can bring about mighty changes in these important athletic categories. The key to improving speed, power and performance is in placing our muscles and joints in the best position to perform. Fixing three key areas can bring about phenomenal increase in performance and decrease your risk for injury. Perform these three steps to improve your posture:
- Engage your glutes: The glutes are the largest muscle in the body and their job is provide power and speed through the extension of the hip joint and leg. Many times these muscles are essentially turned off because of all the sitting that we do. Engage your glutes simply by squeezing your butt cheeks together.
- Activate your core: The purpose of the core is to help connect the upper body to the lower body and allow them to derive power from one another, depending on the activity being performed. To activate your core draw your belly button to your spine.
- Head and shoulders: No correction of posture would be complete without properly aligning the head and the shoulders. The purpose is to allow the spinal column and the semicircular canals in your ears to be properly aligned. When this is the case they act as a guidance system that will help your legs and torso make small changes in your running gait to help you remain upright and avoid injury. When the head is forward we off load the joints in our spine and turn off our semicircular canals rendering them useless. To align your head and shoulders simply roll your shoulders back and down while turning your palms towards the front.
Now you should be standing with your glutes engaged, your core activated and your head and shoulders aligned. Now dial them back to be firing at about 20%, posture shouldn’t lax at all but you are no longer squeezing these muscles. This is good resting posture. When you go to run , swim, hike, cycle or whatever activity it is you are looking to improve these should be dialed up to approximately 35% to maintain posture and allow them to provide you with the increased benefit of speed, power and performance, without any risk of fatigue. To learn more on how you can improve your performance, speed and power through posture and chiropractic, please contact us. We would love to help.