How long does it usually take to correct posture

In fact, there is no unified standard answer. For mild cases, visible improvement can be seen in 1 to 3 months. For serious muscle imbalances or even bone deformation problems, it may take more than half a year to stabilize. Some established bone problems cannot even be completely corrected back to the standard posture.

Among the many clients I have come into contact with, the majority are office workers in their 20s. Most of them have rounded shoulders, forward head extension, and forward pelvic tilt resulting from working at desks all year round. There are no organic bone changes, but the difference in muscle tension between the front and rear sides distorts the posture. For example, an operations girl who just finished her course last month had a head extension of almost 2 cm, the trapezius muscles are as bulging as two small steamed buns. I do muscle relaxation and strength activation three times a week. I go home and take 10 minutes every day to practice lowering my shoulders and retracting my jaw. I specially put a lumbar support to support my back when I sit at work. After less than two months, I took another test and found that the forward head extension has returned to the normal range, and the problem of slipping shoulders when wearing a sling is basically invisible.

But there are also cases where improvement is slow. Last year, I took care of a 16-year-old high school student whose scoliosis had reached 22 degrees. In addition to weekly rehabilitation training, he had to wear a corrective brace all day. It took 10 months of adjustments to stabilize the scoliosis and stop it from increasing. It is almost impossible to completely return to the normal physiological curvature of the spine. Follow-up observations are required every year to prevent the degree from worsening in adulthood.

There are always people arguing on the Internet. Some people say that protrusion can be corrected in 7 days, while others say that it has been useless after practicing for more than half a year. In fact, they are not the same situation at all. If you just sat on the sofa and watched a TV series all night long the day before, and your muscles are so stiff that you temporarily pull your neck forward, after releasing the tense sternocleidomastoid muscles, and then activating the weak rhomboids on the back side, you will be able to see that your neck has been retracted on the same day, and you can stabilize your posture by sitting and standing for a week. It is true that it is effective for 7 days. But if you have been bending your head at your desk for five or six years, the physiological curvature of your cervical spine has straightened, and your muscles have long formed a fixed force memory. After two days of practice, you will feel tired and go back to swiping your phone. Not to mention seven days, seven months of practice may not have obvious effects.

When it comes to posture correction, it is actually like straightening a crooked sapling. If it has been blown crooked for just a few days, it can grow back by tying it with a rope for a few weeks. If it has been growing crooked for three to five years, the trunk has been twisted and shaped, and it cannot be completely straightened no matter how hard it is tied. You can only try to adjust it to the extent that it does not affect subsequent growth and does not press on the nerves and blood vessels. In fact, what affects the correction cycle the most is not how many times you practice per week, but whether you can integrate the correct force-generating habits into your daily life. You cannot always lower your shoulders and tighten your core during training. When you turn around, you will collapse on the sofa and stretch your neck to scroll through your mobile phone. No matter how good the correction effect is, it cannot prevent bad habits from being formed every day.