Chapter 26
Why should emphasis be placed upon resisting the pull of gravity? This is very easy to explain. In the past, as long as your muscles were strong enough they held up your skeleton – with its many points and sections – in proper balance and free from strain or discomfort. Maybe now your muscles are losing the battle with gravity. Maybe you have now become prematurely older, heavier or inactivity has weakened your muscles just enough to cause you pain and an uncomfortable state of balance causing poor posture.
Such sagging stretches the ligaments of your back and can cause backaches, etc. Ligaments that are unduly stretched are painful. Your ligaments are meant to serve only as stops for the joints and they cannot be forcibly stretched without pain. When the ligaments in your back are made uncomfortable by stretching, it is only natural for your muscles to try to oppose the down sagging of your back which results from the pull of gravity.
When your muscles are too weak to do their proper job, then they rapidly become exhausted and develop the terrible misery of fatigue, making your back even more uncomfortable! Check your symptoms! Do you notice a deep aching and soreness along the spine from stretched ligaments? Are your back and shoulder muscles achy and tired? Is your backache basically due to weak muscles? If it is, it’s time you did something sensible to relieve it, enjoy strengthening those weak muscles with proper exercise.
Take the Mirror Posture Test
Look at yourself in the mirror. Do your shoulders slump? Is your upper back round? Do you have a potbelly? Are you a swayback? Can you now see the reasons why your back has the right to ache? The bending, slumping, ligament-stretching force of gravity has taken its toll. But even though you are presently a sufferer of backache due to weak muscles and bad posture, don’t despair. You can restore back comfort with this posture exercise and The Bragg Healthy Lifestyle.
It has often been said that backache is the penalty man must pay for the privilege of standing and walking upright on two feet, often wearing uncomfortable shoes. Every infant struggles to stand instinctively on his own two feet and walk. He need not be taught. He will attempt this bipedal gait even if left alone most of the time and never instructed. It is natural for a human being to stand and walk in this manner. This is interesting, because there are no animals which spend all of their standing and walking hours on two feet, not even gorillas or chimpanzees. These apes use their hands and arms to help them move about. The world’s strongest gorilla would be unable to follow a busy person, walking erectly, for more than a short time. This is because human beings are meant to walk erect!!! and animals are not!
Bragg Posture Exercise Gives Instant Youthfulness
Before a mirror, stand up, feet 8” apart, stretch up spine. Tighten buttocks and suck in stomach muscles, lift up rib cage, put chest out, shoulders back, and chin up slightly. Line body up straight (nose plumbline straight to belly button), drop hands to sides and swing arms to normalize your posture. Do this posture exercise daily and miraculous changes will happen! You are retraining and strengthening your muscles to stand straight for health and youthfulness. Remember when you slump, you also cramp your precious machinery. This posture exercise will retrain your frame to sit, standand walk tall for supreme health, and longevity!
Good Posture Important For Health & Looks
The spines of human beings have natural curves which enable the muscles to oppose gravity and hold their backs erect. As long as the muscles are strong and able to maintain the balance of these curves and to prevent back and shoulder sagging, the back is comfortable. When the muscles are too weak, the back sags, ligaments are stretched which causes backaches.
To maintain oneself in a healthy state involves many factors: the right natural food, rest, exercise, sleep, fasting, control of emotions and mind and, last but not least, good posture. If a body is properly health nourished and cared for, good posture is not a problem. When the body lacks the essentials, poor posture is often the result. Once poor habits have been established, one must faithfully each day practice corrective exercises and good posture habits.
How to Sit, Stand and Walk For Strength, Health and Youthfulness
When walking, one should imagine that the legs are attached to the middle of the chest. That gives long, sweeping, graceful, springy steps because, when one walks correctly with this swing and spring, he then automatically builds energy. Habit either makes or breaks us, and good posture habits make graceful, strong bodies. Just as the twig is bent, the tree is inclined.
When in a sitting position, see that the spine is stretched up and well back against the chair. Put shoulders back and lift chest up and off the stomach, head high and never forward. Be sure to have both your feet on the floor and never sit with your legs crossed! Under the knees run two of the largest arteries, carrying nourishing blood to the muscles below the knees and to all the important nerves that are found in the feet.
When you cross your legs you immediately cut down the blood flow to almost a trickle. When the leg and knee muscles are not nourished and don’t have good circulation, the blood goes stagnant in the extremities which can lead to varicose veins and broken capillaries. Look at the ankles of people over 40 who have made it a habit of crossing their legs and you’ll see broken veins and capillaries. When the muscles and feet don’t get their full supply of blood, the feet become weak and poor circulation sets in. Cold feet torment leg-crossers.
A well-known heart specialist was asked once, “When do most people have a heart attack?” The heart specialist answered, “At a time they are sitting quietly with one leg crossed over the other.” So you can see that when you sit down, you should plant both of your feet squarely on the floor and never cross your legs. People who are habitual leg-crossers always have more acid crystals stored in the feet than those who never cross their legs while sitting. Crossing of the legs is one of the worst postural habits of man! It throws the hips, spine and the head off balance and can become one of the most insidious causes of a chronic backache. Poor posture of any kind can bring unbearable pain throughout the body, especially in the neck and lower back. (Read Bragg Foot Book, see pg. 265)
One very simple habit that is most beneficial to establish for your health is to stand, walk and sit tall and never sit with your legs crossed! Good posture does not require an exaggerated unhealthy position. It’s simply stretching up your spine and standing erect – which gives all your body’s machinery room to operate and keep you healthier! When you maintain good posture, soon your body becomes more youthful, toned and healthier.
“The Illness That Cannot Be Cured By Fasting, Cannot Be Cured By Anything Else.”– German Proverb
Dr. Nikolayev, director of a famous European fasting clinic, often quotes this old, wise German proverb above. Fasting permits the miracle cleansing and healing powers of the body, the mind and the soul to assert themselves.
Dr. Nikolayev – who fasts several times a year in 10 to 15 day stretches – stated, “I usually fast for health and spiritual reasons. I have also fasted several times for a scientific experiment. I always feel excellent when I fast. It is always a happy occasion and a good healthy rest.”
Dr. Nikolayev discovered his patients responded to fasting when all other forms of therapy had failed. The patients had been chronically ill and felt hopeless about their future! Most of them would never have functioned again. The famous doctor, Allan Cott, M.D. noted in his book Fasting, The Ultimate Diet that 75% of those treated by fasting improved so remarkably that they were able to resume a more youthful, happier, active life!
