This is a great article for all you tech junkies (or everyday people) out there that have a bad case of lower back. I am going to show you how you can use you Android device (or another smartphone) to rid yourself of lower back pain.

Back pain is typically caused by weak back muscles and poor posture! Plain and simple. Ever since my teenage years, my posture has been terrible. Especially in high school when I would always slouch. At the time I never understood the affects it would have on my back. Now I wish I could go back in time and yell at myself everytime I was not sitting up straight. By slouching so consistently I did not allow my muscles strengthen and get used to its proper position. In addition to my poor posture I developed from slouching, I am always sitting down on the computer (like many of you) hunched over the screen. While everyone in the world sits down at some time through the day, doing so is one of the worst things you can do for your posture.

One of the keys to relieving back pain is straightening out the spine as it is intended and strengthening those surrounding back muscles so that your spine can stay in that straightened position. The exercises below are some of the best exercises that you can do to target those lower back muscles and properly make them stronger. Once these muscles are stronger, you can sit and stand with better posture putting less strain on your lower back.  After the video we will get into how your smartphone will assist in relieving the back pain.

I am keen on this inparticular video because the mentioned exercises have personally worked for me. I have watched many videos over the Internet and many of the exercises that are suggested do not concentrate on the muscle that are vital for postural correction.

Using your Android device / iPhone / Smartphone to Correct Posture:

First and foremost I recommend that all the exercises in the video are practiced on a consistent basis. As I have stated they have all worked for me. For convenience I will be concentrating on on the exercises from 3:07 until the end of the video. These exercise are specifically for people on the computer all day, and can be done at your computer.

[I will be using an Android phone, Sprint Evo 4g in particular. This is my everyday phone. In theory everything mentioned can be done with any phone that has an alarm clock.]

The hardest part of getting in shape, becoming stronger, developing better posture is consistent effort. One and done will not give you better posture and a decrease in back pain. To remind you to do these exercises you will be using your smartphone’s alarm system. We also will be recording personal alarm sound clips to assist in our effort.

The idea behind the use of your phone’s alarm clock is that it will remind you to do the exercises every half hour.

Setup For Android Users:

1. Record Personal Alarm Message – Open Voice Recorder in Android. Record yourself yelling as loud and obnoxiously as you can, “Posture exercises! Posture exercises!”, “Do your back exercises!”, “Stop what your doing! Do you want to get rid of back pain or not!”, or something similar.
   *Note* – It is not required that you make a voice recording.  You can always use your regular phone alarm. If your anything like me however, your ears have become immune to the sound. Or you have developed a reflex of quickly turning off the alarm and not paying attention to why it is set.  While you may tune the sounds out of your ear, it is difficult to ignore someone speaking directly to you. This is even  if you are talking to yourself via recording.
   
2. Move Recorded Alarm File To SD Card (alarms folder) – Connect your phone to your PC to access the SD card. On my PC it is labeled as the D drive. Open the SD card in My Computer/Computer folder. Create a new file called “alarms”. Open “\My Documents\My Recordings” and drag the file voice recorded file you made earlier into the “alarms” folder. Unplug your Android phone from your PC.
3. Change Alarm Snooze to 30 Minutes – On the video, it was recommended that you do these postural corrective exercises every 30 minutes. So we advise that you set your snooze button to 30 minutes. On your phone navigate to Alarms -> Menu -> Settings -> Snooze duration and select 30 minutes.
4. Set Alarm Clock On your Android device open the Alarms application. Set an alarm for a desired time to start your posture exercises. I have mine set for 1:00pm. Change the alarm sound. Android should have scanned your SD card and found your voice recorder file in the alarms folder. Tha
   t voice recorded file should now be listed as a sound option. Select it.

Steps will generally be the same in theory for the iPhone and other smartphone devices. Because the devices are designed and structured differently, you may have to go through different steps to change alarm sounds or snooze duration. Below is the general idea behind using your phone, just incase you want to use another phone or tweak your method or setup just a tad.

General Idea/Theory For All Smartphone Users:

1. Create a recording reminding yourself to do your back exercises.
2. Set the the recording as the alarm clock sound.
3. Have the alarm go off every 30 minutes.  This can be by manual reset or a 30 minute snooze.
4. When the alarm clock goes off and you hear your own voice.  Do your exercises.
5. *Note* – I recommend doing a few of the exercises. But if this is not possible, than at least do the video’s suggestion of the chair exercise.

Now that the setup is complete, you can now begin. Go about your business throughout the day. You can watch TV, surf the web, play xbox, be in the office taking a nap, etc. Once your alarm goes off and you hear “Do your back exercises!”…Well..Do you back exercises! Make sure you hit the snooze button also. We advise spending 2 minutes doing each. If not, at least do the exercise sitting in the chair for 1 minute. Be sure to properly straighten your head and neck and have your spine straightened as if you were laying down. If you need assistance take a look at the video one more time. Remember practicing the exercises with poor technique can cause more hard to your back. Please be cautious.

When you are done with your exercises, proceed with your everyday tasks. About 30 minutes later you will get another reminder to restart your lower back strengthening. After a few days of these excercises you should really start feeling some type of relief on your lower back.

Please let us know your thoughts and if this has been helpful.

TweakYourLife only wants to help make your everyday life easier. To do so, we need to have more readers. The best way of gaining readers and helping others is to let people know about articles that you find interesting. You can post links on Facebook, Twitter, Digg, and other social networks. Anything helps. Thanks!