Hello and welcome back to my weekly blog, and I will pick straight back up from last weeks, about why I would check your posture when I have already told you that there is no such thing as ideal posture.
There have been a lot of studies, and numerous books, dedicated to the art of assessing your posture, I have some in fact. A lot of modern health practitioners do not even bother checking posture any more because of the lack of evidence supporting claims of one posture being better than another. But I still do, because there are valuable clues that allow me to have honest conversations with you about your lifestyle and what you want to achieve. Some of you reading this, will still genuinely worry about your posture and will wish to adjust it or correct it, and that is perfectly ok too.
Check Your Posture
But if you come to me with chronic neck pain, I will look to see if you have a forward head position, which tells me if your back and neck muscles are operating at a stretch. I look to see if your shoulders are curved, indicating tight chest muscles, further indicating the strain on your body. But when I mention these to you and you tell me that actually you’ve worked at a desk for several years and you’re a keen competitive cyclist, and you don’t really experience pain when you’re doing those activities, then I would not be correcting anything I can see. Why? Because you have taught your body to behave a certain way in order to achieve a goal. Your body, like anything in nature, will evolve as a direct result of stimuli received.
Need to curve forward to cycle more aerodynamically? Done. Need to lean forwards to kneed dough all day at a counter? Done. Need to reach in one direction for brick after brick to build a wall? Done.
Your body evolves so that you won’t be in pain with repetitive activities. I will say that again – your body evolves so that you won’t be in pain with repetitive activities.
So why do you sometimes get pain because of those things and what can you do about it? What can I do about it as your sports massage therapist?
Check back in next week to find out more, and in the meantime, if you’re hurting, get booked in at www.astralfitness.co.uk
See you soon,
Chloe