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Straighten Up America!

Are you looking for a simple, cost-free way to feel and look your best? If the answer is yes, then Straighten Up America is a perfect fit for your personal fitness. Are you bothered by tight, aching upper back and shoulder muscles? Then Straighten Up’s enjoyable activities are tailor-made to help you begin enjoying more ease and comfort in your back. Much of our back discomfort can be improved through some simple enjoyable activities.

The Straighten Up activities are designed to help you improve your posture and self-image. By practicing “Inner Winner” posture, not only will your back feel better, but people will soon notice that you look better and more upbeat and confident.

We look forward to a time when everyone will take two or three minutes every day to care for their spinal health, just as they care for their dental health. There is
a great need for spinal health promotion as evidenced by the many billions of dollars spent each year on spinal disability. Until now, there had not been a short, simple, engaging spinal exercise program designed to promote the public’s spinal health.

To address this problem, in the summer of 2004, a five-person expert seed panel and a multidisciplinary Delphi review panel of approximately 100 health care clinicians, association leaders, college presidents, researchers and health promotion experts began shaping and testing a spinal exercise module known as “Straighten Up America”.

A free, public service program, “Straighten Up America” is packed into three minutes of fun, engaging, healthful activities. Equally useful as an ergonomic break, exercise warm-up or cool-down, “Straighten Up America” is designed to get people of all ages and ethnicity up and moving, while they improve their posture and spinal health. The program also includes a short set of healthy lifestyle recommendations congruent with the goals and objectives of national and international physical activity and health promotion initiatives.

Though still in its infancy as a health iniative, “Straighten Up America” has garnered a number of accolades from health and fitness leaders including Lee Haney, past chairman of the US Presidents Council on Physical Fitness and Sports. Lee describes the program as “awesome” with “vision and much promise”. In January of 2005 Tommy Thompson, then US Secretary of Health and Human Services, “commended” the individuals who developed “Straighten Up” for their “leadership in the field of spinal health”.

When we tested the program last summer, the results were very promising. After five weeks of daily practice of “Straighten Up” exercises, 83% of study participants reported that they had improved their posture. 78% reported that they had strengthened their core muscles. 80% reported that they sit and stand more uprightly and that their backs were more comfortable.

Participants in our initial study ranged from college students to individuals in their eighties. Young children, that we have taught, also love “Straighten Up” and are practicing it enthusiastically. We hope that children around the world will practice these beneficial spinal health habits. Dr. Jose Carlos Martines, the Director of the Child and Adolescent Health and Development Cluster of the World Health Organization, shares this hope and helped to shape the program as a Delphi panel member. We are currently creating multiple language translations of “Straighten Up” for global habituation.

Click Here for the entire Straighten Up America Program PDF

Make sure to consult with your chiropractor first before performing the activities, especially if you have disabilities affecting your shoulders or upper back.