Posture

I think we all intrinsically know that having a good posture is more than just a “nice” thing. I can remember numerous times to stand up straight or sit up straight by my parents whilst I was growing up. his is true for a lot of people, as I’ve heard “Mum always told me to stand up straight” so many times over the years when talking to my clients.

So what is behind it? Is it just because it doesn’t look good? – an argument can definitely be made for this. People are attracted to the chin up and chest out look, its not a hidden fact.

There is a growing body of evidence behind what affect posture has on the body function and you might find it quite astounding as to what it affects. The affects are both physical and emotional from what the research is showing us.

How can you self assess yourself, or what is normal? I will go through the different shapes that we often see in the practice below.

So what would be considered poor posture? 

What isn’t commonly known is that poor posture comes in more than one form. The traditional idea of poor posture is someone that has rounded shoulders and is stooped forward in the upper back. This is indeed one of the presentations, but there are other key points to look for, that are equally important in assessing your body shape. 

The below images are a templates of some of the adaptive patterns bodies fall into, in some instances, at very young ages.

Ideal Alignment:

A.  An accepted healthy posture, where the centre of gravity (plumb line) runs through the ear shoulder, hip, knee and foot. This is a body at ease and structurally intact. There are 3 wide smooth curves that form a healthy spine; two curving backwards in the neck and low back (lordosis) and one curving forward in the mid back (kyphosis). This forms an ideal spine that is a great shock absorber, as it can function in a multitude of ways allowing you to, run, sit, rock climb, play golf, carry a child, garden or whatever else you need it to do. These curves allow the head to balance over the trunk and legs and the body to be physically relaxing. Although this is a decent example, the correct curves in the body are actually even more subtle, they are larger and even more smooth.

Kyphotic- lordotic posture:

B.  This next example is showing a body that has adapted to have 3 steeper curves, a hyper-kyphosis of the mid back and hyper-lordosis of the neck and low back. It carries the head forward over the centre of gravity, the ribcage to be squeezed vertically and the capacity reduced, and the pelvis to be rolled forward. That structure forces the hip and the legs to twist all the way down to the ankles and feet. This structure is no longer at rest anymore, as the centre of of gravity is not central, so this leads to over active muscles to compensate for this. In this posture, the chest is less forward than the abdomen, which leads to a loss of height.

Flat-back posture:

C. This next example is commonly termed as “military back”, because of the straightening of the spine. You can see the loss of the curve in the lower back which forms part of the mid back kyphosis, which leads to a lack of shock absorption in the lower back due to the mechanics changing. The chest cavity is also reduced, the pelvis has rolled back in line with the loss of low back curve and the head is also forward of the centre of gravity. The lower limb is hyper extended (bends back at the knee) and muscles would be very active in this shape.

Sway-back posture:

D. The 4th variation which is that of the slight increase of the mid back curve, the forward adapting of the head and the backward rotation of the pelvis, which leads to low tone of the gluteus muscles (which is also seen in 3). You can also see a slight decrease in the kyphosis of the lower back. This posture typically eats up more of the thoracic cage space needed by the heart and lungs.

These examples all predispose individuals to mechanical issues within the body

(4), creating dysfunction injury sites and also could lead to overuse of certain joints and muscles making them susceptible to wear and tear. Recent research has also related posture to migraines (2), cervicogenic dizziness (dizziness from the neck) (3) and disc degeneration (5). The impact is vast, I can see anecdotally that posture is the primary reason for body problems and as the topic is further researched it will become clearer and clearer to the masses.

The good news is that your body can change. These postures can unwind and they can function much better if you apply the right type of care to them. We are not stuck, we can change and be better.

How does your posture look? What are you going to be susceptible to? What can you do about this? How could you be doing activities better on a day to day basis at home to make sure it doesn’t get worse? We have a lot of resources we are happy to share with you. Look through our website and have fun with it.

If you would like one of our professionals to assess you and determine what is going on in your body, book a free Discovery call to have a chat about what you want help with and we can see if its something we can help with. Alternatively have a chat to your Practitioner about all things posture. 

We look forward to seeing you soon.

References

1. Kendall’s Muscles: Testing and Function with Posture and Pain 

Vincent M. Conroy (Author), Jr. Brian N. Murray (Author), Quinn T. Alexopulos (Author), Jordan McCreary (Author)

2. Evaluation of forward head Posture and thoracic kyphosis in migraines.

Tgba Ozudogru Celik et al. J Clin Neurosici. 2024

3. Suboccipital Muscles, Forward Head Posture, and Cervicogenic Dizziness

Yun-Hee Sung. Medicina (Kaunas). 2022.

4. Biomechanical evaluation of the thoracolumbar spine comparing healthy and irregular thoracic and lumbar curvatures

Brittany Stott et al. Comput Biol Med.2023 Jun.

5. Increasing Cervical Kyphosis Correlates With Cervical Degenerative Disk Disease in Patients With Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis

Adrian Lin et al. Spine (Phila Pa 1976).2024.