Audi are back at it and this time they have developed the R18 Ultra Chair.

Posture-Perfect Chair

Audi has invented the ‘posture perfect’ chair. You know that warm feeling you get on your posterior when you sit down into a chair that another bottom has been warming for you? Well this is the basis of Audi’s new chair research.

German designers have hooked up with Audi and are using their ultra light weight technology and sensors to detect the subjects movements and weight distribution during sitting. My concern is that the subjects movements may not be accurate as they are not being assessed in their ‘real’ environment (school or office) but merely sitting for the designers in a make-shift lab. Their movements and sitting posture may not mimic actual office sitting movements.

Some of the designer’s subjects seemed to need a lot of posture support while others barely even touched the back of the chair. Heavy sitters put a lot of stress on the legs of the chair prompting designers to use aluminium composites for the legs.

The designers promise it will be lightweight and streamlined and may even come flat-packed. Ikea take heed!

I lost my big toe nail recently catching a softball with my it…ouch! If you are grossed out easily this post is not for you.

So first of all, yes I’ve lost my nail. I caught the ball, actually my toe caught the ball through my shoe and boy did it hurt. By the time I got home and took my shoe off this is what it looked like:

Toe Nail Injury (April 5th)

Looks sore doesn’t it? Cue sympathy-I sent a text with image to my other half.

Why Do We Have Toenails?

Well this is what I was discussing with my other half Nic-we went through the usual-to protect. . .to paint but then it dawned on us that of course they are evolutionary remnants of our clawed forefathers. But now that we no longer hunt to kill or protect ourselves with our claws we no longer need them. Perhaps in another two decades we will be nailless and maybe even bald. So why did we also become bipedal (two legs not four)?

Human Bipedalism

According to new research in the Journal Biology, our ancestors may have begun walking on two feet in order to efficiently collect and carry food (I suppose this was before shopping bags) leaving our hands to evolve for all kinds of other skills (making tools and weapons) and pleasures-I’ll leave those imaginings to you.

The researchers studied chimps in the wild. They observed the chimps when a new (more valuable) nut was introduced and found they began collecting the valuable nut biped-ally, so as able to carry more.

These research results reveal how upright posture among chimps appears from a need to improve efficient transport of valuable and scarce resources; suggesting the same may be the case with our forefathers and their need to survive.

Now I know you are just chomping at the bit to ask me about my toe, so here is the update.

Toe Nail Removal (April 24th)

No Toe Nail (April 26th)

New Toenail Sprouting

Maybe one day all our toes will look like this-or perhaps somewhat more attractive!

Posture Chic: Is Good Posture Fashionable?

A person could become very confused about what’s fashionable and what isn’t, posture-wise I mean. Not that I’d ever adopt poor posture just for the sake of fashion, mind you!

Here is what I mean, though.

I happened to be looking through some recent fashions in a Mango catalogue (click right through the whole catalogue and see if you can find the photos-what do you think?). I was struck-hard! – by the simply awful posture of the young women modelling trendy new outfits. Being a high-fashion model, she was otherwise quite attractive, but her posture made her look as if she (a) was in pain, or (b) hadn’t slept for a week, or (c) was criminally undernourished, or (d) all of the above. Maybe she was trying to look “fashionably” bored and indifferent. In any case, “slumped, slouched and sloppy” would be describing her carriage charitably.

At first I thought maybe the slouchy photo was just a one-off that somehow snuck past the editors. No, there were several more shots of the same model, in different outfits – all with similar flopped-over posture. Ugh.

TRENDY SLOUCHING??

Concerned that pathetic posture might be some sort of new fashion trend, I surfed onward. I did encounter a few more fashion photos of glamorous gals with abysmal posture (they must have been trying very hard to look so utterly wet-noodle-ish), but to my great relief, it seems there’s a much stronger trend toward excellent posture, in the world of what’s fashionable. Ahhh. Fabulous!

Specifically, I turned up a good number of current blog posts, articles and the like, touting the return of good posture as a fashion must. Most included mention of smart posture’s health benefits, too – and the fact that it tends to make you look slimmer!

I say the return of good posture quite purposefully. It seems the idea that good posture is a must-have for anyone’s “wardrobe” goes back quite a way. Apparently, it’s all about GLAMOUR.

POSTURE BY DESIGN

Interestingly enough, there are some leading fashion designers who are now deliberately designing clothes that demand healthy posture of the wearer. There are even designers structuring some of their offerings to assist the wearer toward posture carriage that’s healthy and fashionably (!) attractive.

It’s all about looking POISED, positive and powerful. And some writers on the subject add that looking that way has the added benefit of helping one feel and act the same. A nice plus.

My, my. Back at the beginnings of my crusade for happier posture, I never imagined I’d be entering the world of high fashion!

Hm…I wonder how they’re carrying themselves in Paris this season….Your Vintage Guide To Glamour

Did you know that some people are now claiming that habitual sitting may be nearly as damaging to your long-term health as smoking?

A number of scientific studies have found that a sedentary lifestyle, which includes long periods of the day spent seated, has some serious health consequences. Working out for a 1-hour stint three times a week may be no more beneficial than jogging is to the pack-a-day smoker.

Sitting has been linked to heart disease, diabetes and even cancer. Of course, it’s no surprise that if you’re sitting most of the time, you’re also more likely to become overweight. And unless you give some attention to how you sit, your posture can suffer badly.

Stop Sitting?

Unfortunately for many of us, sitting is, well, almost a way of life! In fact, according to one study, most of us sit more than nine hours every day – more time than we spend sleeping.

Let’s say you have an office job.  After sitting down to a nice breakfast, you most likely drive or ride to work, seated all the while. Then you work for most of the day, seated at a desk. Lunch time? Sit down and have something tasty. When the day is done, you head home – seated. At last you arrive back to the nest, ready for the evening meal and some relaxation. Sitting down. Oh, maybe you squeeze in an hour at the gym (upright….phew).

While it’s highly unlikely that you would ever be able to quit sitting altogether (and no one is suggesting you should!) there are a number of ways to cut back or even, try out some active sitting.

The Standing Desk

One great solution some clever sorts have adopted is the standing desk. As the name suggests, this is a desk designed to be used while standing up – no chair. It’s an idea that goes way, way back, though it never seems to have become anywhere near as popular as the usual sit-down sort. None the less, the standing desk has found favour with some very famous (and productive) people – Sir Winston Churchill, Thomas Jefferson, Virginia Woolf and Ernest Hemmingway, to name a few.

The advantage of a standing desk in terms of exercise is pretty obvious. It takes more energy to stand than it does to sit! It’s far easier to maintain correct posture while standing. Using a standing desk also burns more calories, increases blood flow, makes breathing easier, reduces strain on the neck and back, and reportedly even increases productivity. There are also some extremely common chair-sitting habits that are very hard on the body in general (crossed legs, slouching, forward head, chest breathing).

There seems to have been some recent increase in the standing desk’s popularity. They come in a wide range of sizes and heights – a good thing, because people’s standing heights vary so greatly, and can’t be compensated for with a chair whose seat raises and lowers. Even the much loved Lifehacker has switched to the standing desk!

There is even a treadmill desk, thanks to Dr James Levine (Mayo Clinic). With the treadmill desk, you can walk while you work.

Solutions to the Sitting Situation

Short of converting to a standing desk, there are other solutions to the problems inherent in seated work. I call it active sitting.

* Fidget! That’s right. Fidget. We could learn a thing or two from our little people. Fidgetting actually stimulates blood flow, exercises your muscles, burns calories, and helps you stay alert. So roll your ankles, roll your shoulders, turn your neck, wiggle your bum, turn your eyes away from your screen and GET UP!

* Get a different chair – a Swiss ball (sometimes called a yoga ball) a wobble cushion or  try a kneeling chair.

* Get up and move around. One famous writer used to keep a little timer at his typewriter (today’s  equivalent-set your mobile phone). Before he began writing, he’d set the timer for 33 minutes – just a number he chose out of the blue. When the timer went off, he would stop – mid-sentence, if that’s where he happened to be – and go do something else for a minute. Play with the dog, have a drink of water, fetch the mail, whatever. After a couple of minutes of active break, he’d sit down, re-set the timer, and go back to work.

* Do the 1 minute workout (the video at the top of this post).

Sitting is here to stay in our uber technical world – but happily, there are plenty of steps you can take to minimise the potential harm to your health and posture. Get your booty movin’ and wiggle it….just a little bit!

Well, in all my pokings-about into the history of posture, I’ve just managed to surprise myself. So I think it’s only fair that I surprise you, too.

You see, I took it into my head to see just how far back scientific interest in posture goes. It’s certainly a hot topic in health, fitness and medical circles today, but how long have the very brainy been directing their prodigious pondering and postulating powers at posture?

AN ANCIENT GREEK POSTURE GEEK

It turns out that the story goes back at least as far as the 300s B.C., to the Grand Old Man of Science himself, Aristotle. It seems he took a keen interest in the structure of animals’ bodies – and included the human animal in with the rest of them. He observed and noted and tested and thought and considered, then observed and noted some more, and ended up discovering all sorts of interesting relationships between how bodies are built, and how their occupants hold them, sit them, stand them, and generally move them about. He was so fascinated with all these observings and discoverings that he wrote an entire book on the subject: De Motu Animalium or, for those of you who managed to escape Latin classes, On the Movement of Animals.

Moving forward to the late 1400s, we find Leonardo DaVinci taking an interest in posture (and just about everything else under the sun). It all began during his investigations of animal and human anatomy, and how these biological/mechanical marvels met the challenges of living: respiration, circulation, locomotion and – perhaps most important of all – finding where to get the best pizza. (Luckily, he was already in Italy.)

At least part of Leonardo’s interest was in how he might put the mechanical principles he discovered to good use in designing machines. Specifically, machines that would take advantage of the natural strengths and abilities of men and animals.

In the 1600s, Galileo Galilei (most famous for his discoveries in astronomy), also studied animal and human body structure and mechanics. He made some particularly interesting observations on bones and bone structure, and how they related to body functioning both at rest and in motion. He noted that the fact that bones are hollow (and therefore both strong and light-weight) makes it possible for humans to stand erect.

Around the same time, a colleague of Galileo’s, Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, made great strides in understanding the mechanics of human and animal structure and motion. Borelli is thought to be the first to identify and explain the importance of the human body’s centre of gravity – an important principle in posture analysis and correction. Like Aristotle, Borelli was so fascinated with the subject that he wrote a book – and even gave it the same title as Aristotle’s: De Motu Animalium. (Every scientist in those days seems to have been something of an Aristotle wannabe.)

POSTURE AND MODERN SCIENCE

Interest in body structure, mechanics, motion, and how they all relate to health and well-being continued, right on down through the years. In the field of posture, particular note was made of its effects on breathing, the health and functioning of internal organs, the circulation of bodily fluids, and the workings of the nervous system.

Finally, in the 1970s, it was recognized that all these various observations and discoveries really added up to a complete and distinct subject. And so the term “biomechanics” came into use to describe the application of engineering mechanics to biological and medical systems.

The field has been growing by leaps and bounds ever since, continually fuelled and forwarded by technological advances in other fields – computer science, imaging, and many more.

BACK TO BASICS

Of course, throughout history there is one basic that has never changed, no matter where things stood in the world of science, posture-wise. The true heroes and heroines of posture – mums and dads, aunts and uncles, teachers, preachers and sergeants – have never abandoned their ages-long crusade for heads, chins, shoulders and chests held just so. Good, healthy posture is a natural thing, after all!

Did you know that there’s a posture revival in progress?

That’s right. You have probably noticed more and more attention given to posture in recent years. Attention to posture in general, and to the health benefits of good posture in particular. Good heavens, I hear there’s even someone with a whole blog on the subject – with videos! Fancy that!

POSTURE MOVEMENTS THROUGH THE AGES

All this attention, buzz and sit-up-and-take-notice interest is far from new, though. It’s actually a modern version of much earlier trends. Let’s have a look at one of those trends, spanning almost three centuries!

Beginning sometime in the 1600s, it seems there was a growing concern in Europe about manners, particularly in middle- and upper-class society, and largely aimed at children. Posture was considered a vital element of proper manners, and the young ones were to learn good habits early, as part of becoming respectable members of society.

By the middle of the 1700s, books on teaching children good manners and posture were appearing in North America, and even well-known figures such as American statesman John Adams were writing about the importance of proper posture in social relationships.

Good posture was tied to self-discipline, and by the 1800s, insistence on high standards of holding oneself had become a regular part of child-rearing.

Doctors chimed in, urging good posture as an important factor in maintaining health. There doesn’t seem to have been much concern with posture training, beyond insistence that young Tommy and sister Prudence sit up straight and proper. Straight, rigid chairs and stiff clothing for formal functions – including corsets for the young ladies – helped enforce good posture discipline.

POSTURE POPULARITY 

By the early 1900s, the proper-posture campaign was gaining momentum, urged mightily onward by the medical profession. Posture testing and training became the order of the day in schools, with teachers using posture kits to evaluate their pupils. An American Posture League formed. Special lessons were devised for kids who were stubborn about straightening up. For particularly hard cases, wearing of posture-correcting devices was sometimes required.

It was about this time (we’re up to the neighbourhood of the 1920s) that the habit of walking with a book balanced on the head gained popularity as a posture-building practice. (Book-balancing is back, by the way – though it has evolved a bit. Have a look.)

Along about the 1940s, after rising to dizzying heights, the society-wide posture movement began to fade out. By the 1960s, there were even medical doctors pooh-poohing the earlier posture fuss, saying that only severe cases of bad posture were cause for concern – and those could be treated medically, of course!

TODAY’S POSTURE MOVEMENT

Today, we’re back to a strong, healthy and growing interest in good posture and its many benefits. It’s a better-informed interest, too, with amazing advances in science and technology providing information, tools and solutions. So this new surge of attention isn’t merely posture history repeating itself. It’s a health and wellness renaissance!

Origin: late 16th century (denoting the relative position of one thing to another): from Italian postura, from Latin positura ‘position’, from posit- ’placed’

From the Oxford English Dictionary people:

posture 

noun  (often as noun posturing) 

1 a particular position of the body: I got out of the car in an alert posture.

2 a particular approach or attitude: trade unions adopted a more militant posture in wage negotiations

- a way of behaving the government maintained a defiant posture for home consumption

verb

1 behave in a way that is intended to impress or mislead: a masking of fear with macho posturing

POSTURE THROUGH THE AGES

Now let’s take a look at posture from a historical view. For many of you, all you know of posture has come from your mother-“Sit up straight!” 

But….posture goes back a very long way indeed-yes, even longer than mum.

For instance, there’s some very famous attention paid to posture in the ancient Greek legend of the sphinx. The sphinx was a strange creature, said to have had the body of a lion, the wings of an eagle, a serpent-headed tail, and the head and face of a woman. (No, she did not have a dragon tattoo.)

She was a rather ill-tempered and unsociable sort, who took it upon herself to perform some early Grecian traffic control. Settling down alongside a road, she stopped travellers and demanded that they answer a riddle. If they couldn’t answer correctly, she promptly strangled and ate them. A bit strict, if you ask me, but who am I to question the wisdom of the ancients?

THE RIDDLE OF THE SPHINX

The riddle of the sphinx was this:

What goes on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs in the evening?

The correct answer? Man – who crawls on all fours in his early days, walks on two legs through youth and middle age, and finally has to walk with the aid of a stick, in old age.

Something forces him into a low-to-the-ground posture in the frailty of his early life. He overcomes that something as he grows, and for years stands (we hope) proud and erect. Eventually, though, the something wins out, bending him over and forcing him to use a prop in order to stand at all.

On the face of it, this is all pretty straightforward stuff. The “something” in our postural struggles is the force of gravity. If gravity had its way, we would all be laying flat. Inquisitive, industrious and contrary creatures that we are, we disagree. We stand up and go about our business, balancing precariously all the while. And finally we find our bodies wearing out and needing extra help to stay upright.

PHILOSOPHICAL POSTURE

Some modern scholars believe, though, that the story of the sphinx is hinting at something much deeper: the idea that there may be a way to overcome the forces of nature. Forces represented by gravity, in this case – with its constant drain on our energies, and its long, slow erosion of our vitality, mirrored in our posture through the years.

For now, I’m going to leave that to the philosophers to sort out. The point is, posture has been on the human race’s collective mind for a long, long time, and it has shown up in some extremely interesting and sometimes surprising ways. More to come on that.

Want to beat gravity? Start with these most watched posture videos:

Forward Head Posture Correction

Remove Muscle Knots Yourself

Do you know why blind people have excellent posture?

I was at Ted X conference in London this past weekend and it was totally inspiring. If you don’t know Ted Talks, you should!

One of the speakers was Daniel Kish, a blind man who lost his sight age 14 to cancer. Daniel can ride a bicycle! It was amazing to watch a video of a blind man on a bike. He uses echolocation that enables him to gauge his whereabouts using a clicking sound that creates an echo. He uses echos to see! Utterly fascinating.

One thing I couldn’t help but notice was Daniel’s excellent posture. It got me thinking about another blind woman I know who also has excellent posture. I began postulating that having excellent posture if you are blind must somehow heighten the other senses, in particular, hearing.

Deaf Man Regains His Hearing

Some of you may not know that the first chiropractic adjustment was back in 1895 on a deaf man named Harvey Lillard. Lillard had normal hearing for most of his life. However, he had been bent over in a cramped, stooping position, and felt something “pop” in his neck. When he stood up, he realized he couldn’t hear.

D.D Palmer (the founder of Chiropractic) deduced that the two events — the popping in his neck and the deafness — had to be connected.

Palmer ran his hand carefully down Lillard’s spine and felt one of the vertebra was not in its normal position. “I reasoned that if that vertebra was replaced, the man’s hearing should be restored,” he wrote in his notes afterwards. “With this object in view, a half hour’s talk persuaded Mr. Lillard to allow me to replace it. I racked it into position by using the spinous process as a lever, and soon the man could hear as before.”

What’s Your Posture Doing To Your Spine?

Your spinal alignment has everything to do with your posture. If you are out of alignment (think of a twisted garden hose), your nerves don’t work properly (the water flow is interrupted) as with Harvey Lillard. And as the nerves in your neck go to your ears, it must be pretty darn important that your head and neck alignment is good. Well, it certainly seems like that is something a blind person knows because I don’t think I can recall seeing a blind person who slouches.

So when you are considering the reasons to improve your posture think about the knock on effects to your organs and body systems. Do you have a kink in your garden hose? I have designed the only online Posture Analysis service to help you assess your posture from the comfort of home. Easy!

It seems that “old” depends quite a lot on your viewpoint. If you THINK you’re old, you are.

HOW MANY YEARS DOES IT TAKE TO MAKE YOU OLD?

The most commonly accepted definition puts “middle age” at from 40 to 60, with “old age” going on from there.

Since “old” is such a subjective thing – such a matter of feelings and outlooks – some people in the UK did a survey. These intrepid surveyors found that in most people’s view, you stop being “young” at 35, and begin “old age” at 58.

Not too surprisingly, the survey results varied depending upon the age of the person asked. Younger folks (under 25) felt youth was over at 28, and that old age began at 54. People in their 80s, though, were more generous about the whole thing. They set the old bar a bit higher, with 42 as the final year of youth, and old age beginning at 67. If you listen to conversation among medical specialists such as cardiologists and vascular surgeons, who deal mainly with people in the 50 to 90+ range, a person well into his 60s is still a youngster.

Think Yourself Young

Ellen Langer (Harvard Psychologist) did a study on hotel maids. She found the maids reported they did no regular exercise (even though they cleaned 15 rooms a day, scrubbed toilets, pushed vacuums, pulled sheets and regularly walked several flights of stairs). Langer took several measures for fitness and discovered these women scored similar results to those with sedentary lifestyles.

But when Langer explained to the hotel maids all the daily exercise they were ACTUALLY getting, those same women decreased their weight and body mass index and lowered their blood pressure by 10%! The only thing that changed was their mindset.

If you believe you are healthy, your body behaves as a healthy body should. I’ll think I’ll be 35 again!

So we can think our bodies into health but can our bodies change how we think? They sure can but you’ll have to read about The Confidence Trick.

I’ve been meaning to talk to you some more about a growing movement in the world of exercise, with some interesting implications for your posture. It’s called “functional exercise.” It goes by a few other names too, such as “functional training” and “functional fitness training.” I mentioned the subject briefly in an earlier post, but it really does deserve more attention.

As a bit of a warm-up, I should define what functional exercise is. There doesn’t seem to be a universally accepted, “official” definition, but it could be accurately described as exercise designed to build your capacity to perform real-life activities, in real-life positions. Rather than just focusing on one or two muscle groups, exerting force in the narrow position and path dictated by a gym machine, functional exercises work lots of your muscles and muscle groups, all at the same time. They train your muscles to work together, readying them for daily tasks by simulating movements you commonly make at home, on the job or in sports. Functional training exercises make it easier and safer to carry out your daily activities.

FUNCTIONAL EXERCISE AND POSTURAL FORM

You knew I’d get back to your posture sooner or later, didn’t you? Of course.

It happens that functional exercise is remarkably helpful in achieving and maintaining healthy posture.

You see, your posture is ultimately the result of cooperative efforts by many parts of your body. Functional exercise is superb in this regard, because it exercises so many different groups of muscles. Let’s take a look at one functional exercise in particular, just as an example: walking lunges. You can see it demonstrated in a video I put together.

Now, walking lunges are primarily a lower-limb exercise, but they do so much more than just spiff up an isolated muscle group or two. You have to make all those lower-limb motions, while maintaining your balance, breathing, and keeping the whole body upright and moving forward. (It’s probably best not to think about all this as you’re doing the exercise – it could make you dizzy!)

The result is improved strength and tone in the legs, certainly, but hips, ankles, feet, upper and lower back, arms, neck and core also get into the act. Of course, the brain, balance mechanisms and much of the nervous system come into play, too. Marvellous! As for posture, well, every single body part and system I’ve just listed is indispensible in giving you good and healthy posture.

FORM IS FOREMOST

I said it in the video, but I’ll repeat it here – it’s that important. As you do walking lunges, or any functional exercise, it’s crucial that you give plenty of attention to your form. Go slowly. Be aware of each body part’s position and action. If possible, refer back to photos or a video of the exercise, and refine your form. Maintaining good form will help you get the most out of the exercise. (You’ll look good, too, if anyone is watching!)

FUNCTIONAL 40-SOMETHINGS

If you’ve passed the age of 40 and haven’t been keeping up with the exercise you really meant to do, it’s best to check with your healthcare provider before embarking on a functional exercise program. Likewise, you ladies who are pregnant, and anyone with current health troubles, should check in with the doctor before lunging into anything of this sort.

WEIGHT A BIT

Here’s another weighty point to bear in mind when planning a functional training workout program. It’s wise to start off with exercises that use only your own body weight for resistance. As your fitness improves and you feel ready to advance, you can introduce extra resistance: weights, a medicine ball, resistance tubing, exercising in water, and the like.

SHOULD YOU QUIT THE GYM?

So, does all this mean it’s time to quit going to the gym?

Not really.

There is still plenty to be gained from many of the activities you’ll find in a good gym. More and more of them now have functional exercise experts on staff, too! Keep going, but give more attention to functional exercises mirror the activities of daily living, and wind you up with better health, fitness, and flexibility – and confident, comfortable and attractive posture, too!

P.S. from P.M.: Here are some more functional exercises.