What if I told you that posture doesn’t matter?
We all grew up being told to ‘stand up straight’ and to ‘stop slouching on the chair”. Nowadays sitting has been described as the new smoking and stand up desks are selling out faster than hot cakes.
What if I told you that these beliefs are possibly causing more harm than good?
Key Points:
- Stop labeling your posture as good or bad
- Posture only matters when load is involved
- You are the only person in control of your body (hopefully)
Okay before I do a deep dive into this topic, let’s define posture.
Posture is the default movement patterns and positions that your body likes going into.
Everything in nature is inherently lazy. Your body prefers to be in certain positions because it is comfortable, and that is completely normal. So labeling a posture as good or bad could be leading you into something called “guarding behaviour”.
What is guarding?
We all have seen those videos of cats overreacting when jumping onto alfoil on the kitchen bench (if you haven’t, stop what you are doing right now and look it up). From now on that cat is going to expect a rude shock whenever it jumps on the counter top – and actively avoids it. You are the same. You learn that a particular movement may cause discomfort so you actively avoid doing it. Let’s use pushing your knees over your toes as an example. The problem lies in the fact that you are not made of glass, you are not fragile and you ARE MEANT TO MOVE.
“Motion is lotion, rest is rust”
Dr. Anne Schuchat
By not moving your knees over your toes what happens is that the muscles in this case your quads atrophy (shrink) and sensitize. This means that when you go to use your knee – your muscle fatigue quickly and starts to hurt. Due to this extra sensitization, what would normally be a 3/10 pain ends up being a 10/10 pain; Unfortunately this can spiral. That is when a good health professional (like one our amazing EP’s) educates you on how to desensitize this area.
When does posture matter?
When force transfer is involved. Be it running a marathon, squatting 300kg or simple picking your kid off the floor. These are times when having a stacked neutral posture matters. If you are able to properly load the prime movers of the exercise it means that you are able to do the activity more efficiently without overloading the secondary/ supportive muscles. There are people who are naturally flexed AKA kyphotic, others who are extended AKA lordotic, and some who are both. The first step is to figure out what posture you have. A good way to know this by looking at your lifts. If you are good at squatting chances are you are probably flexed. And if you are good at deadlifting you are probably extended. After you have figured out what posture you have the next step is to learn how to stack, breath and brace. This is a whole other can of worms that needs to be opened on another day.
So why am I telling you this?
To empower you to take control of your body. At the end of the day you are the only person who can make positive changes to your life and body, our job is to facilitate this positive change not do it for you. If you are struggling with any of these topics send us a message or comment below and one of our exercise physiology brisbane coaches we’ll be in touch.