Yoga for a Healthy Back - Improve Your Posture!

One of the fastest way to improve your appearance is to improve your posture. Poor posture detracts from our looks in numerous ways and makes you look older, no matter what your age. Worse, as we get older, the bad posture of our younger years for many begins to turn into the hunched back and shoulders, which are the precursors of dowager hump, or in medical terms, hyperkyphosis.

Poor posture is one of the most overlooked health issues in today's society. Bad posture lies at the root of much shoulder, neck, and back pain, and it can even be involed in recurring migraines and headaches. The rounded shoulders and forward head posture, which is so common in our computer-age, also compresses the chest cavity and heart area, restricting the breath and lowering your vitality and well-being.

Worse, if poor posture is allowed to progress into the full-fledged hyperkyphotic posture of a dowager's hump, it causes numerous health issues. Studies of elderly in nursing homes with the seriously hunched back of dowager's hump have found that people with advanced hyperkyphosis tend to suffer more health problems and die earlier than their peers.

Fortunately, there is a lot you can do to improve your posture. Studies have shown that yoga in particular can help strengthen the core posture support muscles and stretch and release tight muscles, which otherwise keep you trapped in a bad posture. Even better, as your posture improves, so does the structural health, balance, and vitality of your body.

Of course, the earlier you begin, the better. This 3-part series of exercises from the Yoga for a Healthy Back series is designed to improve or even reverse the early stages of dowager's hump.

With this sequence, you'll get three 20-min. download yoga practices with different types of corrective posture exercises, which help you improve your posture in a holistic and complete way. The downloads will be delivered weekly, one every Saturday for three weeks. The following corrective posture exercises build on each other to improve posture and strengthen the back. The download practices include:

Week 1. Heart Opening

This heart and chest-opening sequence improves posture and gradually  reshapes the body to help gently correct bad posture, including the hunched back and shoulders of early-stage dowager's hump.

Week 2. Core Integration

This core integration sequence lays the foundation for better posture by building core strength and restoring correct postural alignment. Without a strong foundation of core muscles posture support, permanent improvement of bad posture is less likely to occur.

Week 3. Back Strengthening for Posture Support

This back strengthening sequence strengthens the main posture support muscles of the back, necessary to counteract and reverse bad posture.

For Best Results. Practice each sequence three times in the first week after receiving the sequence. After that, for best results simply alternate the three practices, so that each is practiced at least once a week.

As always, you are adviced to consult with a physician before starting this or any exercise program.