What is Posture?
When we talk about posture, most of us think of sitting up straight, pulling our shoulders back, and walking with a book on top of our heads. Is this really what posture is? Well, ya … sort of. We’ve been taught from a young age to sit up tall. Why? Because sitting up tall shows others that we are alert, attentive, and listening to what they have to say. It also makes us look leaner and physically fit. I hate to say it, but posture is generally linked to our looks and others’ perception of us. However, with years of study in the Exercise Science and Rehabilitation Sciences, I have learned that posture is so much more than aesthetics.
It is about creating a balance of muscle strength, mobility, and overall health.
Overuse syndromes and chronic pain symptoms are often a result of poor posture. After 12 years as a full-time Exercise Physiologist and Personal Trainer, I’ve worked with many clients solely on improving their posture. If there’s one take-home message, it is that good posture can’t be taught in a day. Our current posture represents our body’s adaptation to a lifetime of movement. Over time, our body has molded itself into the current position based on what we have been doing our entire lives. We have developed wear and tear patterns from everyday activities, walking, exercising, and playing sport. If we’ve endured an injury, such as a broken arm or a motor vehicle accident, our body will have adapted to accommodate for this injury’s symptoms. With weeks, months, years, or even decades worth of adaptation and compensation, it’s easy to see why our posture may take some time to correct. However, if we can stop it from getting worse, than we are taking steps in the right direction. If we can improve it, even better.
Posture is the way your body holds itself in either a relaxed or active state.
It is a reflection of your spinal alignment, which is affected by your range of movement around a certain joint and the flexibility of the muscle tissues. Muscular strengths (and weaknesses) will also be a contributing factor to your body’s postural stance. As we sit all day long in the same position, certain muscles will stay tight and shortened, such as our chest and hip flexor muscles, while other muscles will lay dormant in an overstretched position, such as our mid-back and glute muscles. Some joints are compressed and restricted, while others are more lax and vulnerable. The image above depicts this all too well. It is easy to suggest for everyone to sit less and move more; however, it is inevitable that we will still spend a lot of time each day seated over a computer or other electronic device. Even while walking, many of us are still texting and looking down into our handheld devices. I hate to say it, but this is somewhat unavoidable unless we make a conscious effort NOT to be like this. Fair enough, the world has changed and technology has made life so much easier, much more convenient and time efficient. I know I won’t be giving up these new luxuries any time soon! That being said, it is up to us to take care of our bodies and to be proactive. We can blame our jobs as much as we want, but we need to be responsible to put our health first.
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