How to improve posture?

Friends, any tips for improving posture? From my father's side of the family, we tend to have relatively heavier upper shoulder and back and tend to stoop a bit. Ideas appreciated, as also any online vids or articles. I've heard about the Alexander technique, those in the know, any good web resources on this?

thanks,
-9r5-

Committing the sin of replying to my own topic here, but found a decent video here that might be a start for like-backed slouches.

http://posture-exercises.blogspot.com/2008/07/posture-exercises-upper-back-exercises.html

Still welcome posts :-)
-9r5-

I have noticed a huge change in my posture after cleaning my body up. It is no longer comfortable for me to slouch, I have to have shoulders back and down all the time to be comfortable. Before, I had problems with slouching and round shoulders and I tried to force myself into a good posture like many people advised us to do. That method along with certain exercises at the gym might work but I prefer cleaning up my body and letting the posture come naturally instead.

Try doing exercises that will strengthen your core, ab exercises, leg lifts or something that will strengthen the back muscles. It will be much easier to stand up straight.

Great article. The right posture or body language, can actually increase testosterone and decrease cortisol. Fascinating stuff!

http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6461.html

"In "Power Posing: Brief Nonverbal Displays Affect Neuroendocrine Levels and Risk Tolerance", Cuddy shows that simply holding one's body in expansive, "high-power" poses for as little as two minutes stimulates higher levels of testosterone (the hormone linked to power and dominance in the animal and human worlds) and lower levels of cortisol (the "stress" hormone that can, over time, cause impaired immune functioning, hypertension, and memory loss)."

Good leads guys, thanks.

The linked article in Milba's post is food for thought. If faking good posture in the short term can boost mood and reduce stress indicators, then what gifts could good posture bestow in the long run!

There's also a nice link in the article on how warmth and niceness in people is sometimes (erroneously) correlated to incompetence.

More suggestions welcome,
-9r5-

j87x wrote:Try doing exercises that will strengthen your core, ab exercises, leg lifts or something that will strengthen the back muscles. It will be much easier to stand up straight.

Agree: focus on core, especially back muscles

Something also to try that works for my slouching habit is stretching the front side. Muscles in your chest and lats tend to tighten and shrink when you slouch, which pulls you further forward. When I am consistent with stretching my chest and shoulders and lats I notice a huge improvement in my posture.

I was watching a lecture on posture improvement by Michael Tonetti discussing various exercises, but one of the things that caught me off guard, something I never once thought about was that posture is a learned behavior. If your parents had poor posture, you would more like develop poor posture growing up. learning posture from the closest examples.