I wasn't following my own advice about low back pain

Sit up punk!

This is not medical advice.

There’s nothing worse than a hypocrite.

Recently I’ve noticed certain exercises that make my lower back feel worse. There are thousands of exercises and variations, so there is no reason to perform the ones that hurt.

But sometimes I conveniently forget, or just want to keep doing certain exercises. I have a mild to moderate exercise and weightlifting addiction. Not the worst addiction to have.

Some of the continued weight lifting is vanity. There are certain exercises that just build more muscle mass. Ironically, some of the exercises that feel better for me are sitting. I just finished writing an article about the benefits of standing exercises on improved back stabilization.

So which is it already? I’ll still argue that we are all individuals, and have exercises that are right for us. This is important in any realm. Fitness click bait has blanket statements like “What’s the Best Exercise?” The question should be, “What’s the best exercise for me?” The media can’t answer that, because they don’t know you.

I didn’t fix my sitting posture until I was in my middle 30’s. Which is crazy because I had already been doing this job for 10 years. So I was not an example of what to do.

One day it occurred to me that I was going to need to fix this. That slump punk posture up at the top of the article is how I sat as a teenager, and throughout my young adult years. I straightened up one day, and it felt very dorky. It’s a little self conscious to sit up straight. You wanna look cool and laid back.

Well having back pain wasn’t cool, and the vanity was decreasing. This is advice that I now offer everyone with my old slacker posture, because I felt it.

Once you sit upright for 1-2 months, your postural muscles will get stronger and have more endurance. After a few months of the new posture, you won’t want to go back. If you try and slouch again later, it won’t feel right.

This is a case where prevention is better than the cure. Correcting posture now will save you time, pain and money later on.