Posture.

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I have poor posture and it is almost like my back is bent a bit, I do sit ups and running to help me keep straight.

Okay I'm back! I see there's a few new responses as well.

I haven't tried yoga or anything like that but I have made an effort to try a mix of jogging/walking several times a week. I have a few questions about what exactly is normal. I rarely did any exercise growing up until a couple of years ago when I experienced some lower back pain during a period where I was quite a bit more inactive than usual. Anyway on and off for the last two years I've been making more of an effort to keep myself moving. Naturally it was pretty uncomfortable when I started but it doesn't seem to be getting any easier so I just thought I'd ask around and see if I can get an idea of what is normal.

Most of the time I jog on a treadmill at home. About 80% of the time I get a pain on my right side while I'm doing it. Just a side stitch I think but should I be getting them so regularly?

Is it normal to feel like I'm not getting enough air in? I tend to alternate between walking and jogging, and about 20 seconds in I feel like maybe I'm not breathing properly or something, but I have no idea..

Finally, does anybody else feel uncomfortable in their stomach when they run? I don't really know how to describe it. I just feel uneasy in that area after a while.

I'll try to provide more info if you ask any questions but at the moment that's the best I know how to put it.

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@Softlystepping: I don't even know if I'd be able to do a pull up..

^^^
my physical therapist told me that to improve my posture, the first step was to feel what proper posture looked and felt-like, so she had me stand up against a wall and told me to "melt into the wall" IOW to try my best to flatten my whole upper body against the wall to where [aside from the natural lower back lordosis] she couldn't slide a hand between me and the wall, concentrating especially on the range from the upper-back to the back of the head. once i got the muscle memory sensations of that posture, it wasn't too much trouble to feel when my body was deviating from that posture and to "assume the position."

to "The_Perfect_Storm" - the uncomfortable feeling in your abdomen might come from muscle fatigue. doing pushups and crunches will tone your core muscles which should reduce the uncomfortable feelings there. but [a doc told me this] if you have an un-dx'ed hiatal hernia, you could well be getting discomfort or even heartburn from stomach acids agitated by the body movements of running. i don't know if you were talking about abdominal muscle discomfort or actual stomach discomfort.

the feeling of not getting enough air mainly could just be poor aerobic conditioning or it could be a number of other things like asthma, for example. a head-to-toe physical checkup would not be a bad idea, before starting on any physical fitness regimen. for me, it took me months to get back into acceptable aerobic shape, and during that time for the most part i was always out of breath and my heart pounded past a low level/duration of exertion. i felt that my system was not up to the task of getting fit again after a fallow period of a few years. i just had to allow my aging body more time to get back into the swing of things.

about side stitches, this i found, below-

The first reasonable explanation and successful treatment came from Dr. Tim Noakes. Thick fibrous bands called ligaments extend downward from your diaphragm to hold your liver in place. When you run, your liver drops at the exact time that your diaphragm goes up, stretching the ligaments and causing pain. Humans have a fixed pattern of breathing when they run. They have a two to one breathing ratio, breathing once for each two strides. Most people breathe out when the right foot strikes the ground. When you breathe out, your diaphragm goes up, and at the same time, the force of your foot strike causes your liver to go down. This stretches the ligaments that attach the liver to your diaphragm, causing pain. So the cause of a side stitch during hard running is a stretching of the ligaments that hold the liver to the diaphragm and the cure is to relieve the stretching of the ligaments.

When you get a side stitch, stop running and press your hand deep into your liver to raise it up against your diaphragm. At the same time, purse your lips and blow out against the tightly held lips as hard as you can. Pushing the liver up stops stretching the ligaments. Breathing out hard empties your lungs. Usually the pain is relieved immediately and you can resume running as soon as the pain disappears.

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I'm thinking of breaking the activity into two parts. Should make it easier to exercise for the amount of time that I would like to. Hopefully it will get a bit easier.

I'll keep an eye on how my body is feeling next time. Could make it easier to explain what's happening.

Posture is SO important. I wish I'd paid more attention to it over the years. I'm doing physical therapy right now after getting hit by a drunk driver in September and am doing a lot of stuff related to postural correction because I've noticed that during days when I'm sitting a lot at work and slouching, I'm more likely to be in pain later in the day. I also wonder if years of bad posture led me to have less muscle tone in my back and neck and if that's making it more difficult to bounce back from some of my injuries. There's not much I can do about that now, of course, but I'm definitely motivated to be more mindful of my posture moving forward.

My personal training coach showed me some exercises that helped me straigthen my back a bit and strengthen the muscles there. Generally squats are pretty good for this. Then there is this thing thats like a squat, but you swing the weight forward and back down when you do the squat. Then there is this one exercise where you stand a little close to the wall with your back to it and then bend your knees and stretch your arms all the way forward, while moving your thighs back toward the wall, and try to keep your back as straight as possible the whole time.