Understanding Your Posture and Why It Matters
Your posture is the shape of your body and this is dictated by your skeleton. The reason for this is gravity.
Gravity is a pretty strong force. It stops us flying off into space as the Earth spins. Its effect means that we are constantly being pulled towards the center of the Earth.
This means that in order to be upright, our skeleton has to be stable or it will fall over. A stable skeleton will be balanced front to back and side to side. Your weight will go through the area between your feet and you’ll be able to stand up with next to no effort from your muscles. When you move, you should use the minimum amount of effort required.
Only when all load-bearing joints, ankles, knees, hips, spine, shoulders and head are lined up correctly both horizontally and vertically will you achieve balance and healthy, effortless function.
This is totally different from what you have been told by other people who say that you can improve your posture by strengthening and stretching your muscles. These activities only help you to cope longer with a poor posture, but not fix it. Your posture is all about the shape of your skeleton. It has nothing to do with your muscles.
Why do I have poor posture?
From what we have said above, you can probably work out the answer to this. Poor posture is due to changes in the shape of your skeleton. Your skeleton can be thought of like a frame (like on a bicycle). If it is crooked, it won’t work properly.
The most common issue that people have is that their skeleton is tipping forwards. This is why people get text neck, hunch forwards, have a hump in their back, get foot deformities, etc.
Such conditions are only becoming more prevalent with our modern day society. The advent of labour saving devices have made us lazier and our laptops, smartphones and tablets have only exacerbated the problem of ‘forward head posture’.
The image above demonstrates how drastic an affect a few inches of forward head posture can have on the body.
Imagine how much harder you have to work to keep you from falling flat on your face when your head is that far forward making it feel more than 3 times as heavy! As a result, you can be sure to feel pain and degeneration over time.
As we mentioned it is not the muscles that are the problem. It is your bones. In particular bones that are out of place that cannot correct themselves. The problem direction is ALWAYS forwards for the spine vertebra. This is because there are no muscles or combination of muscles that can be used to pull these bones backwards into their correct position.
All about balance
Your bones are pretty much going out of place slightly all the time but often you don’t feel any negative effects as they can correct themselves. The problem is when they go out of place and CAN’T self-correct.
The number one problem for the body is the vertebra bones going forwards as discussed earlier. Because there is no mechanism for the body to correct this, instead it compensates to get around the problem.
When you collapse forward due to a bone out of place, your body not only goes forward but it also twists or tilts to either the left or right. This is because when you fall forward you have lost your center of gravity and therefore balance. Your body has to try and shift the center of gravity and stabilize itself by twisting. The more it has to shift the balance the more twists are created.
Over time your body loses the ability to adequately compensate for the poor mechanics and you develop a hunch and so on. This is why the elderly are often (sometimes even young people) are bent over.
If you often struggle to stay still and find yourself wobbling, crossing your arms a lot, having to lean on one leg or the other or even have hold on to something you obviously have poor balance. This is down to your poor posture.
With the ABC™ protocol however we can correct this. We offer a FREE consultation including a demo of the ‘First Rib Manoeuver’ before you decide on proceeding with any treatment. You will feel the difference to your pain and movement right from the off.