Your Posture, Your Spine & Your Ability to Perform at Your Best!
What is Posture? Posture is the overall alignment of various body parts relating to each other when a person is in a relaxed stance and therefore becomes a measure of the overall balances within your body (i.e. it’s how you look when you’re standing still).
The Ideal Posture: When looking at your posture from the side we want have your earlobe, the tip of your shoulder, your hips and the bony part of your ankle all to be in a direct line. When looking at your posture from the back we want to have the back of your head, shoulders, and hips to be all levelled.
What Happens When your Posture is not Ideal? Posture is the window to your spine. When there are imbalances in one or more areas in your body it can result in unequal weight distribution, muscle imbalances, pressure on joints, discs and nerves. These imbalances that are places on your body can lead to biomechanical dysfunction and possibility sites for injuries. (i.e. a poorly working part on a bike or car can lead to it breaking down faster) This is because your body is being asked to work in a less than optimal position. Having poor posture leads to abnormal stress on the spine (including all the joints, disc, muscles and ligaments), which can lead to pain. Pain is just a symptom - your brain telling you that there is a large amount of inflammation due to the excessive stress placed on the spine often from poor posture.
Unfortunately it doesn't stop there, as pain sets in your body tries to compensate to lessen the stress placed on the inflamed areas. This leads to even worse posture (eg. someone bent over because standing straight up is just too much pain on their back).
Where Does Bad Posture Come From? Poor posture can come from multiple sources. Every time you fall or lift something too heavy, perform an activity improperly; even doing something with poor posture can create poor posture. It forces your muscles and joints to do things which weren’t meant to do; our body changes to those stresses and our muscles and spine get use to that way getting stuck in a poor position, hence poor posture.
How Can Good Posture Help Me Perform at My Best? Think of your spine as a set of stacking blocks, when you have good posture the blocks are directly on top of each other, then when you add stress to the stack of blocks (for example; placing something heavy on top or push your finger into the stack of blocks), see how much it takes for the stack of blocks to fall over. Now, when you have poor posture and your spine is not aligned properly, just like the placing the stacking blocks unevenly on top of each other, when you add stress to body like the stack of blocks see how easy it’s to get the blocks to fall over. This is how your body responds to stress, and when you do activities that place stress on your body (i.e. lifting, bending, during sports and other activities) you need to have a good spine like the stack of blocks so you may perform as best as you can.
How Can I Improve My Posture? The good news is that we can all make our postures better. The first thing you need to do is figure out what is the cause of your poor posture. Going to see a chiropractor and/or a massage therapist can help you find the cause and the solutions to your poor posture. Sometimes through diet, exercise, stretching and changing the layout of your work place can significantly change your posture. However, there may be areas in your spine that may need a bit more work to get your posture better. A chiropractor is an expert at detecting and removing areas in your spine that are stuck (call subluxations), which restore proper function to your spine and allows for your posture to improve almost instantaneously.
After the patient has been treated for the acute pain and I've helped to improve the compensatory poor posture from the pain, the next step is to work towards improving the posture/structure of their spine to the point were there is very little to no abnormal stress on their spine. Only then will the poor posture/pain cycle stop to progress. This is usually a longer and more active process on the patients part cause it involves regular stretching/strengthen of their spine along with the continuation of chiropractic treatments for rehabilitation.
The final and possibly most important step to prevent the cycle from recurring in the future is to find the source of the stress of the spine which lead to the poor posture in the first place. Common examples include improperly adjusted chairs at work, shoes that don't support the feet well and overly heavy backpacks and purses. Once these stresses have been addressed the road to great health and wellness can begin.
So, whether your posture is poor a little or a lot, there is always room for improvement and it always easy to fix problems when they are small rather then big ones. Go see a chiropractor or massage therapist and find out what you can do to better your posture, your spine and your ability to perform at your best!
-Dr. Andrew Erjavec
For more information on how chiropractic care can help with your posture please contact Benefit Chiropractic & Wellness Clinic in Langley, BC at 604-534-7451.
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