My posture is terrible, and it causes all kinds of problems. This book is a common sense way to address issues with posture, and I have been implementing some of them to great success. Highly recommended.

SIT UP STRAIGHT by Vinh Pham (with Jeff O'Connell) is subtitled "Futureproof Your Body Against Chronic Pain with 12 Simple Movements." Pham utilizes a conversational, non-threatening tone and plenty of illustrations to help his readers improve their posture. I especially liked the relative ease of implementing many of his suggestions. For example, he encourages sitting on an exercise ball so that you need to essentially keep your feet flat on the floor and your back straight. He also illustrates using a water bottle between your back and a chair at varying heights (lower back, middle and upper) for short times in order to exercise different muscles. Try it (you’ll be surprised)! His sections that begin DO THIS NOW: are great, simple reminders to take care of yourself. These advocate taking your next Zoom call on a walk or getting up and moving every thirty minutes; both actions combat our increasingly sedentary lifestyles and Pham references a 2016 study that found that 60 to 75 minutes every day of moderate-intensity physical activity is "how much exercise it took to offset the increased death risk from sitting for more than eight hours a day." SIT UP STRAIGHT is easy to read and full of activities to reduce pain, improve mobility, and avoid future health issues.

This is a helpful book on how to sit, jog, exercise, play sports, etc. in order to protect your body and prevent pain and injury. It features exercises to do in a short amount of time every day to take care of your joints, with small photos of each. Pham goes into a lot of detail about how different movements and habits harm the body and how to do things right. It was a little tricky for me to get the hang of the recommended movements. I will try to formulate some kind of routine but it would have been helpful to have some kind of cheat sheet page and/or a video link to help cement them. Still a great resource.

I read a digital ARC of this book for review.

Actionable advice for people suffering from back pain. Some of the solutions reflected highly on privilege and wouldn't be implementable to every person. There was more than enough useful information to balance it out, but some of the suggestions are not accessible to everyone...specifically making your workspace ergonomic, or taking stretching breaks, which would be hard if not impossible for most blue-collar workers who also have back problems.

This book was way more than I hoped it would be.
From the title and cover, I thought this would be a book of exercises I could do at work. I sit at a computer for eight hours a day and I lean forward and slump. I need to learn to sit up straight and may move my workstation around to be more ergonomic.
This book is so much more than a few workday exercises. It has a full on physical therapy session full of exercises to do that will strengthen your body on every plane and moving in every direction, lateral, frontal and transverse.
Doing these exercises will strengthen your base and core and you can hold yourself upright and in alignment protecting yourself from sciatica, slipped discs, plantar fasciitis and so much more. Protect your mobility then move on to core workouts and then strength workouts. Staying in alignment and building or keeping muscle and mobility as you age. This is a great place to start for people wanting to manage pain from poor posture or looking to begin working out.

This is an excellent resource to have on hand at home for home physical therapy. As an 'aging athlete,' I've seen my fair share of physical therapists in the past few years, and this book takes all the best advice, practices, and exercises, and puts them all in one place. A must-have for anyone who wants to stay active and healthy as they move forward.