Hello and welcome to April’s blogs, all about your posture and what you think about it, and at the end of the month will be an update about my new associate, Jen Llewellyn.
So, do you think your posture is bad?
Or do you think it needs some work?
It might surprise you to learn that ideal posture was first determined by hanging a cadaver from a hook in its skull and seeing how the body hung beneath it. A cadaver is a body that has been donated to medical science for study. There isn’t more relaxed than dead.
Think about the stresses and strains that your body goes through from the moment it wakes up, to the moment it is asleep again, and even during sleep. You’ve never completely without tension, somewhere, so trying to emulate the ideal posture of a cadaver will be impossible.
That said… why do so many professionals in the health and fitness industry try to sell you on correcting your posture? Or tell you that bad posture is the reason you have chronic back pain? Spoiler alert – it isn’t.
And, here is a big one, why do I, as your Sports Massage Therapist, assess your posture the very first time I meet you? Actually, I assess it every time I see you walk towards me from your car, or sit down in my treatment room, when you stand up… you get the picture. So why do I do that?
Because there is no such thing as ideal posture, but there is such a thing as bad positioning. I refer to the ideal posture as a starting point, and that is it, what I see before me can tell me if you’re a desk worker, a brick layer, a tree surgeon, an athlete, a driver, and the tensions those careers create, which may tell me why you’re experiencing pain.
Check back in next week to learn a little more about why I look at your posture, and why I am attempting to correct something when ideal posture doesn’t exist.
Pop over to www.astralfitness.co.uk and book an appointment if you’re in pain from bad positioning and I will help you understand why and attempt to solve it for you.
See you soon,
Chloe