!#5: Good Women Workout Apparel: January 2012

!±8± Using The Posture Bra As A Back Support

Sometimes, it things can just get desperate. Tired of neck and upper back pain, women seek out posture bra back support. Here's where things can get tricky for women versus men. While both men and women have the constant force of gravity pulling on them, women have a little something extra in the front that can more adversely affect them.

For most people, it's the position of the head that keeps gravity pulling all day on their necks and upper backs. Move your head forward an inch and you have increased the force of gravity on your supporting muscles by a factor of ten.

The answer? Work on improving the neck and back muscle strength to gradually bring the head back over the shoulders and eliminate the head moving forward and increasing the pressure on your spine and muscles.

For women, they also deal with their chests being acted upon by gravity, pulling them downward. Be warned, though. Adding a back support of any kind will help support your back but not fix your posture issue. If you seek out a posture bra back support, you'll want to take a two-tier approach to ending your back pains.

You'll still want to find an exercise program to build up the strength in your neck and back muscles, which will almost immediately get you some back pain relief. If you proceed with the posture bra purchase, you'll just want to make sure that you don't lazy about taking care of your postural muscles.

Wearing a posture support of any kind for extended periods of time (like weeks or months) can gradually decrease the strength of your muscles. It's like they're not even being used, so why would they stay strong? If you stopped using your legs, they too would eventually get weaker. The same principle applies to your back muscles.

Evaluate your computer workstation and take a look at any current exercises you're doing. Do your normal daily activities use your back muscles? Or can you add in things that increase your need for your postural muscles, which will reduce your need to seek out a posture bra back support. Sometimes we think we're doing all we can to solve a problem, but our efforts just are specific enough to truly address the problem.