When working with athletes for performance or rehab, we restore balance and symmetry in the body with posture exercise. Posture improves accuracy, strength, and power – all the necessary components for an athlete to compete safely and at top performance.
Many sports require training that puts the body under a high stress load for a short period of time in order to achieve fat loss and muscle building quickly. When performing under such intensity, sound biomechanics are essential to optimal performance and injury prevention.
When you put your body through intensive exercises, such as squatting, pressing, lifting, and pulling, you will fatigue and your form will breakdown. While there may be coaches or trainers there to help you, if you don’t have the necessary experience and proper understanding of posture, you are setting the body up for injury.
Posture Exercises for Athletes
It’s important to stretch and strengthen the body with specifically designed posture exercises for athletes to counter the effects athletic training has on posture. This is true from the standpoint of winning, recovering, healing, and later in life, aging.
Balance is a key component… a vital part of maintaining structural integrity of the neuro-musculo-skeletal system. Developing the stabilization strength necessary for optimal balance is crucial in achieving goals, whether they are injury prevention, improved performance or simply performing activities of daily living. ~Improving Balance, EM Osar
Dr. Steven Weiniger, renowned posture expert, provides additional insight to the pivotal role posture plays in high-intensity exercise, “High intensity exercise programs can be great for the seasoned athlete. But athletes often exercise to exhaustion, so form and motion can become sloppy from previously unnoticed posture asymmetries and compensations. To a degree, paying attention to clean form can help. But if there’s a longstanding postural weakness or adaptation, consider checking with a posture-focused professional so you train smart. After all, your form in any sport always begins with posture.”
With any physically demanding activity, it’s all about efficiency in movement. Proper alignment and posture increases the body’s ability to move, especially under stress. For athletes, posture analysis and integrating specific strong posture exercises into regular training is a must to improve performance and decrease injuries.
Dr. Deane Studer is a chiropractor and with posture specialist training, Certified Posture Exercise Professional (CPEP) – and also an athlete – practicing in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
