- What's up? It's Chris Heria.
Today, I'm gonna visit my friend Dr. Jason,
that's a chiropractor here in Miami,
and he's gonna show us a routine that you can do from home
to improve our posture,
and let's also see if it will increase our height.
I'll see you there.
Jason, how are you, my brother?
- What's up, bro?
- I came to you today 'cause I know that you're an expert
in the spine and posture,
and I know you've helped a lot of people here
at your office at Rejuve in Brickell, Miami.
Can you tell me what causes bad posture?
- There's three things that cause bad posture.
The first one is trauma.
You've probably heard of whiplash, and what a whiplash is,
is a rapid acceleration-deceleration injury.
So basically you're falling down,
and your head goes like that, or you hit something,
and you don't actually have to hit your head
to have a whiplash.
You could be twisting on the bars
and falling and jerking your body.
- Wow, so that sounds like it can happen
to pretty much anyone whether you are playing sports
or even just having some random accident.
- Totally, and trauma's unavoidable in a sense
because it's always like, oh, it happened, right?
Like there it is, and then you're dealing with it.
And the second one is actually just, it's just that.
It's bad posture, and you know,
sometimes we're sitting down,
and we just have this like terrible posture, right?
We're just sitting there, and we're slouching over.
- That's me.
- Yeah, I saw you, right?
I saw you with your Instagram story like this.
And I was like, oh, man.
And so bad posture,
what happens is our ligaments actually deform
after just 11 minutes in a certain position.
And the last one is muscle weakness.
And that's why I know you can help a lot of people
because when the core is weak, they go backwards,
which we call a posterior translation or a hyperextension.
And then as a result, in order to keep balance,
'cause you can't just do this, unless you'd fall over,
the head goes forward.
And so your body is back, and your head is forward,
and you've got this like slouched posture,
and it's largely due to muscle weakness.
- What are some of the negative effects
caused by bad posture?
- Oh, man, one of the biggest negative effects, Chris,
is that it puts a direct tension on your spinal cord.
So we are designed to have these normal curves in our spine
where your neck is bent like this,
your mid back, your thoracic spine is bent like this,
and your lower back has the same curve in your neck.
So it's lordosis, kyphosis and lordosis.
And those are normal,
and they're actually supposed to balance each other out.
It's literally like taking your jacket here,
and it's nice and relaxed,
but then somebody grabs it like this,
and it pulls it tense like that.
Imagine how uncomfortable if somebody just did this to you.
- Yeah, I feel the tension.
- Yeah, exactly, and it would be like awkward and weird.
And the biggest negative effects we see
from the neck are things like headaches, allergies,
fatigue and especially neck pain.
From the upper back, a lot of times,
we see wrist, hand and finger numbness or pain.
And when the posture is like this,
we see a lot of symptoms in the hands and tingling,
that type of thing.
And then in the lower back,
because those nerves go to the digestive organs,
we oftentimes see things like gas,
cramping, bloating, diarrhea and constipation.
And then, Chris, because of the nerves
that come out of the lower back,
they go basically everywhere below the belt.
And so what's really common is with women,
we have a lot of menstrual problems
where they have severe, severe cramping,
and a lot of women take medicine for their menstrual cramps,
and they think that that's normal.
- That's tragic.
- It is tragic.
- Sounds like you definitely
have to be paying attention to your posture.
- Yeah, I mean, your posture, think about it.
If you're walking around with this hyper-extended lower back
for years and years and years,
it just wears and tears on the body and the discs,
and it can cause neurological problems,
and it can cause a neurologically mediated
erectile dysfunction that just can destroy a man's life.
- Well, that's enough reason for me alone
to improve my posture.
- Straighten up. (laughs)
- Could bad posture be corrected
and avoid all these negative effects?
- It can, and that's the good news, Chris.
We actually can correct bad posture.
There's a lot of science behind it now.
And what we have to do is we have to change the way
your ligaments are holding you.
And we can do that through exercise
to deform and reform into the correct position
that holds 'em into the right place.
And for those people out there
that have really severe postural issues,
that's when you want to seek the help of a doctor,
for example, that practices chiropractic biophysics.
And it's been proven that we can change posture
in as little as 30 to 40 visits.
- Can improving your bad posture also increase your height?
- It can, Chris.
We actually lose height when we lose our spinal curve.
And if you combine losing the curves in the spine
as well as disc degeneration,
that's how people really truly shrink.
And I'm sure you've heard old people say like,
"Oh, I used to be 5'8"." "I used to be 5'10"."
"I used to be six foot."
And they're really, you know, bent over.
And that's because they have lost the curves,
lost the disc height and lost the muscle tone
to even give them hope of holding themselves
into the correct position.
So we have to start with the muscle tone
and teaching people the right muscles to activate
in the right areas so that they can avoid disc degeneration
and maintain their spinal curves.
So not only are you losing height, having bad posture,
you're actually draining your energy.
- That makes a lot of sense
because even when you're in a handstand,
the more stacked you are, the less energy you use.
So the routine that you're gonna be showing us today
has us covered on all of that.
- It has you covered on all of that.
We're gonna look at the neck, the upper back,
and the abs and the lower back muscles,
as well as the hamstrings and the glutes.
It can all be done from home
in just a matter of a few minutes.
- Well I'm excited to get into this routine.
How about before we get into this routine,
we check my height?
- Yeah, let's do it.
- See if we actually improve my height.
- I've got a little confession to make, Chris.
- What's up?
- I even Googled, how tall is Chris Heria, before.
- Oh, man, how, how tall did it say?
- 5'11".
- (laughs) Well, that's what it says on my driver's license.
That's what they tell me at the doctor's office.
But we're gonna confirm it on this vlog right here.
- 5'10.5".
- Go do that routine, and we're gonna.
- Let's go!
- We're gonna run this back. (laughs)
- First thing we're gonna do is have you lay face down,
and we're gonna work supermans or back extension.
So as Chris is doing this,
you can see that he's holding his thumbs up,
and by doing that he's holding his arms
into external rotation.
So with this exercise, when his neck comes into extension,
we're specifically engaging the cervical spine.
And this area is most commonly affected
from looking at the computer or down at the phone.
And here this is the thoracic spine.
We're specifically engaging the extensors,
and this is helping to counteract poor posture,
slouching forward from sitting on the couch,
sitting at a desk or looking at your phone all day.
Now this one is for a muscle called the longus colli
and almost nobody knows this exercise.
It's kinda like a chiropractic secret.
So what you're gonna do is tuck your chin in
as far as you can like so.
So it's gonna feel really strange
like you have no chin, right?
So tuck it in all the way.
Use your hands even to push it in.
With this exercise,
we're specifically working the neck, the cervical spine,
and we're specifically engaging the longus colli muscles
which are deep down in the cervical spine.
And although he's looking forward,
we're actually counteracting staring down all the time
because we're strengthening the deep muscle
that's holding his neck into the right place.
So that would be the wrong way to do it.
His jaw, his neck are actually protruding forward,
and that's basically proliferating a bad posture.
So the next position, Chris,
is it's the classic hollow hold,
but we want to give some regression.
So what I always do with my patients is I put my hand
under the low back, and I wanna see if I can slide it there,
and if I can, they're not doing it correctly.
So I need you to put your back to the ground
so I can't get my hand under there at all.
And this is specifically for the lower back,
especially those L5/S1 nerves
where people can have like digestive or reproductive issues.
And if you sit all day or drive all day,
this will help to reverse the effects of those.
So Chris, I'm gonna show you one more exercise
for the neck since you're in this position already
before we move on to the hamstrings and glutes.
So you're gonna arch your neck back,
and you're gonna use your elbows to push into the mat.
That way you don't strain your neck.
And I want you to lift your chest off of the mat.
And then now what you can do is if you're able to,
you can take your elbows out of the picture,
put your arms here,
and you're just supporting the back of your neck.
- Yeah, they do this in wrestling.
- Yeah, exactly.
So now what you're doing is you're working
specifically the cervical spine
and the posterior neck extensors that hold us upright.
And so this is a more advanced bridge,
and this is something that we typically will give
to football players, wrestlers and fighters.
And so like I do these for jiujitsu, same thing.
And so this is when somebody's basically bored
of doing it the way that we taught,
they would step it up.
- Right, or when they can handle it really.
- Exactly.
So now we're gonna move on to the hamstrings and glutes.
You ready?
- Yep. - Let's go.
You probably know this, it's known as a glute bridge,
but what we're gonna do, you we're gonna use sliders.
And what I really love is that Chris already knows
to keep his core really flat, and so exactly.
And so what he's doing by keeping his head down
is he's basically activating his entire posterior chain
which are his neck extensors, his mid back spinalis muscles,
his lower back, and his abs
and his hamstrings and his glutes.
So if you can just do three sets of five of this,
that would be a great level to begin with.
And if you can work your way up to three sets of 10,
you're already kicking butt.
All right, Chris, you killed that.
So I got one more for you.
- All right, let's do it.
- All right, come on up, man.
- All right, whatever it takes, man.
I wanna be taller. (laughs)
- Yeah, that's it, bro. Let's go.
Okay, so put your feet all the way against the wall,
and then what you're gonna do
is you're going to flatten out
and do a hollow hold against the wall,
but you're also gonna get your upper back against the wall.
And then you've gotta get your head against the wall too.
Exactly. So this is the reverse.
Where before, we were tucking in our chin to go forward.
Now we're tucking in our chin to go back.
And by doing this, what you're doing
is you're activating every single posterior muscle
which are the muscles in the back of our body.
And as you can see, Chris is really jacked,
but it comes out even more when he is in this position.
And you notice he's actually shaking on this one
because he is pushing really hard.
You really want that extra.
- Yeah, you guys have to try this.
- Yeah, and if you hold this,
I would say like 15 seconds times three,
you will not believe how tired you'll be.
- All right, now's the moment of truth.
- Come on, man, let's do it.
- I'm gonna be as stacked as possible this time.
Dude, if it's big, if it's taller, I'm gonna trip out, man.
I'm gonna do this every day. (laughs)
- You are literally exactly at 5'11".
- There you go, you see those doctors weren't lying.
- Hey, so what that says-
- There you go, yeah, that shows you is like,
we're always kind of like hiding our true height.
- You're always fighting against gravity.
And that shows too, because you do work out so hard, man,
but I have seen you sometimes slouching a little bit.
- Right, of course.
- You know, I mean, you're human, everybody does.
So if you do these exercises, I mean,
it's great to be jacked and ripped,
and, you know, I wanna be more like you, man.
We also have to do these exercises though
to keep our spine right.
- Oh, 100%.
Like we just did that little routine right there.
I already feel so much better.
I feel like my posture has improved.
So when you said that you do feel it right after,
I mean, it's true, you do.
Go ahead and give it a try.
And now that I'm standing taller, I'm also looking taller.
- Hey, that's it, man.
- And, of course, if you do have some real major issues,
it's always best, of course,
to seek the help of a professional,
especially if you could be having something like scoliosis,
or you never really know, so it's always.
- Just like you've helped me level up my calisthenics
and continue to do so, of, course, man.
We want people to avoid pain
and just not have to train in pain.
- Dr. Jason, thank you so much
for hooking up all my subscribers with this routine,
helping us to have better posture,
and take advantage of all our height.
And if you wanna check out more videos from Dr. Jason,
he's also a YouTuber with over a million subscribers.
Check out his YouTube channel, that's youtube.com/drjason.
Definitely be starting and documenting the journey
of healing my injuries
and getting me to perform at my highest level.
- Yeah, man, we got work to do.
- You don't wanna miss that.
So make sure you subscribe,
and I'll see you next Thursday, 11:00 AM USA Eastern Time.
Mad love and peace out.