I have never had great posture (which is probably why my childhood dream of being a ballerina was incredibly short-lived). And when I started working from home five years ago, things went from passable to very bad. Working almost exclusively from your bed or couch will do that to you, apparently.
But I had my youth goggles on and didn’t consider the long-term effects. So now, a few weeks before my wedding, my shoulders are hunched up to my ears, and I’ve got a bit of a sexy neck hump. Oh, and my back and shoulders hurt sometimes. Woohoo. And let’s be real—good posture makes your boobs look better. I don’t make the rules.
It may be a little too late to drastically change things before I walk down the aisle, but I am nothing if not a spontaneous procrastinator. So I got on Amazon and ordered myself one of those posture correctors I’d been seeing on social media everywhere.
I didn’t have high hopes for it, but I also expected it to immediately solve all my posture problems.
I committed to wearing it for a week because I know myself. Unless it was life-changing, I would inevitably forget all about it after that amount of time.
When I threw this in the group chat, our gorgeous editorial assistant Alexa mentioned that she too had been wearing a posture corrector. Here are her thoughts:
“I love my posture corrector, I’ve been using that bad boy for about a year now. Not that I would be caught wearing it in public. But in the privacy of my own home, I always throw it on throughout my WFH days.”
“Not only has it solved my slouched shoulders and tech neck, it’s also made me acutely aware when I’m not wearing it. Reminding me to push my shoulders back and keep my head held high. It’s all about length, ladies. Keep it at all times.”
This was encouraging, so I was excited when my posture corrector arrived. I immediately opened up the package and thought, “I should start this in the morning, so I have a full day of wear.” And then three days later, I ended up putting it on.
Here’s how my week went.
Some people like to start new things at, like, the beginning of the week or month. I like to start them the first day I remember. So my first day ended up being a Thursday.
The instructions made it look much harder to put on than it actually is. It’s basically like slipping your arms through the straps of a backpack.
First impression: It makes it a lot harder to hunch forward or squeeze your elbows towards your ears, both of which were kind of my default setting.
Unfortunately, the hunching and scrunching I’d been doing for so long meant that all the muscles overcompensating for my bad posture weren’t really used to working like they should. After a few minutes of wearing the corrector, my mid-back started to feel sore. I ended up taking it off after about 15 minutes. (It says to wear it one to two hours daily, but I figured I could work up to that.)
The posture corrector seems to work by pulling your shoulders back and making it more difficult to slump over. Also, the light pressure of the straps serves as a reminder to check in on your posture. I wore it for 30 minutes in the morning. I planned to do another 30 minutes in the evening, but going to see the Barbie movie for the third time was much more appealing.
On the product’s Amazon page, the model is shown wearing it while doing some sort of yoga class. I felt like a dweeb, but I decided to test it out. Biggest takeaway: Engaging your core is a really big deal, and if you have poor posture and you think you’ve been engaging your core, you probably haven’t. At least, that’s how I felt. Also, it chafed.
I had to do extra laundry because the corrector was all sweaty from my experiment the day before. Did not wear it out of protest. Plus, I was going to brunch.
Didn’t wear it again today, as it was in the dryer. Obviously, I completely forgot about it.
The day I discovered that wearing it over a short-sleeve shirt instead of a tank top (my usual choice in the hellish heatwave) is more comfortable. There’s less chafing from the straps digging into your armpits.
The final day of my commitment! There were some ups and downs, but overall, I’m feeling more aware of my posture. And I can wear the corrector for longer periods of time. I also had a wedding dress fitting, and my tailor said I looked less tense, so I’ll take it.
The plan is to continue to wear it for as long as I remember to put it on in the morning. I’ve started keeping it right by my desk for this exact purpose.
Go deeper with: People With Great Posture Do This 5-Minute Routine Daily
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