A Little Chat About Posture
(View Blog at www.RikFitDC.com)
Back with
another RikFit blog, but this time on a topic that I don’t see being covered
too much. I see many experts cover this topic, however even though it seems to
be an increasing issue with our society, people just brush it aside and don’t
actually do anything about it. The topic I am talking about is posture.
The reason I
am writing this blog is over the past few weeks I have been very observant of
peoples postures including mine, I see elderly people hunched over waddling from
side to side because they sit in a chair all day, I see tall people trying to
be small, small people trying to be tall, girls sticking their bums and chest
up, guys in the gym looking like apes with arms dangling in front of their body
instead of to their sides. It hasn’t frustrated me but it’s made me realise
that bad posture is more predominant then I originally thought, I never paid
attention to it until recently when I realised that a lot of my issues with
inability to perform certain exercises safely was due to my posture and the way
I moved throughout the day.
Now before I
go on with this blog I think I should point out that I am no sort of an expert
in this area, I have only studied it minimally in my own time and do not have
all the answers to questions on posture. However I do have some experience with
helping individuals correcting their posture and I am quite observant of other people’s
posture in day to day life.
I don’t
believe posture to be the number one priority for everyone, but I do believe it
should be something everyone should be mindful of. Your posture covers the
positioning of your limbs and torso from the bottom of your feet to the top of
your head, some individuals are born with posture issues but many develop them
due to their lifestyle and the way they move. Before I go on to cover what may
cause bad posture and how you may prevent it, I’d like to cover 3 typical
spinal issues that are quite common and effect whether someone has a good/safe
posture or bad/dangerous posture.
You may have heard of them
before, they are as followed:
Kyphosis - excessive
outward curvature of the spine, causing hunching of the back. You will most
commonly see this in individuals who sit in a chair for the majority of the
time or allow their shoulder blades to protract when that are doing daily
activities.
Lordosis -
excessive inward curvature of the spine. This tends to be more common in individuals
who are obese as they have to compensate for their anterior (front)
distribution of weight, causing them to lean back and put pressure on the
lumbar section of their spine. Also in my opinion but I’m not sure whether it
is true or not, I see this to be very common in individuals who partake in
sport of physically demanding activities from a young age. I see many power
training type individuals, most commonly sprinters, with quite an extended
lower back that seems to occur naturally for them. I could be mistaken and they
could just have huge gluteal and lat muscles but I often here these individuals
suffering from lower back issues unless they are taking action to keep
everything balanced and evenly functioning.
Scoliosis - abnormal
lateral curvature of the spine. Now scoliosis in my experience tends to be much
less common, I do not see many people with this issue but I know it to be quite
common with individuals who carry loads for a long duration of time on one
side. Individuals such as postmen are a great example for this issue carrying
bags on their stronger side for a lengthy amount of time.
For the examples I gave for each above, I think it
is important to point out that they may not be a severe as actual spinal
curvature, they could actually just be muscular imbalances. For example,
kyphosis would be most commonly tightening of the pectorals, anterior deltoids
and abdominals, along with the loosening and lengthening of the upper back
muscles, rhomboids, trapezius, latissimus dorsi, posterior deltoids etc.
Lordosis would be the tightening of the posterior muscle around the lower back
area, mainly gluteal muscles, erector spinae and many other lower back muscles,
along with the lengthening of the abdominals, oblique’s and possibly hip
flexors. Scoliosis would be the tightening of a group of mainly lateral muscles
on a given side of the body, such as the tightening latissimus dorsi,
oblique’s, serratus anterior, hip flexors and gluteal muscles on one side and
then the lengthening of them on the other.
Hopefully now you have an understanding of the 3
most common spinal disorders and how the body can be influenced into moulding
itself into any of the 3 listed. As I said they are the 3 most common issues I
see with posture, there are obviously other areas of the body that effect
posture such as whether your feet are flat, invert or evert, rotate overly
inwards or outwards, whether your knees naturally internally rotate when flexed
or over externally rotate, the way you tilt your pelvis naturally, posterior or
anterior tilted, are your shoulders overly protracted or retracted so on and so
on. But without going into too much detail, I’m going to give you one or two
tips on how the prevent these issues from occurring.
First have a look at yourself or get someone to
take an image of how you stand from the front, back and sides, then take a look
at it and identify if you have any issues, are your shoulders rounded, is your
head/neck leaning forwards, is your lower back curved, are your legs straight
or bent, is your bum tucked in out pushed out, are your feet pointing in or out
etc.. If you are unsure what a good/safe posture is then you can always look
online to see what is most commonly referred to as a good posture, then you can
compare it with your posture.
Secondly start taking action to fix your posture,
is you have identified rounded shoulders, do exercises that help retract your
shoulders and keep them in a neutral position, along with stretches that help
lengthen the muscles around your shoulders and chest. If you don’t know what
muscles to train to correct or even your posture out, then again seek the
guidance of a book, a coach or online, there are 1000s of sources of
information out there that can give you guidance on how to strengthen and
lengthen specific muscle groups.
Lastly BE MINDFUL, if you are sat in a chair,
identify how you are sat, if it is unaligned and uneven then correct it
yourself, sit up right, make sure your spine is neutral and your pelvis is, put
your shoulders slightly back and plant your feet on the floor. Also do it when
you are moving around, walking, running, cycling, jumping, rolling, lying,
crawling, anything and everything. I’m not saying be a posture police officer,
but I am saying maybe for 5 minute here and their correct yourself instead of
falling into that bad and unsafe bodily positioning.
You may be reading this now and thinking, “right ok
he has made his point, posture is important blah blah blah” but believe me, you
will be AMAZED at how your posture can make your prone to injury, especially your
form/bodily positioning during heavy weight training. Your body will tighten up
and tighten up until eventually POP, something will go and you have to pray it’s
not too serious! So don’t obsess over it but don’t neglect it either, find that
happy medium where you maintain a good healthy posture that prevents you from
feeling aches and pains from the bottom of your feet to the top of your head.
Well as usual I hope you all enjoyed this blog post
and leave learning a thing or two on how posture can be effected through your
lifestyle, job and daily activities as well as how to take action to improve
your posture to prevent the increased risk of injuries, bodily curvature, tight
muscle and aches and pains. I can imagine one or two of you sitting upright in
your chair now and realising that you was quite slouched and curved whilst you
was reading this blog. Remember to not be a posture police officer but to be
MINDFUL of how you stand, sit, move and what is tight, lose or unstable. Please
comment below if you have any input in to this blog and share it with anyone
you know who’s a sloucher or a leaner or any other nick name you can think of,
it might just stop someone from injuring themselves in the future!
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