So let me first tell you what it’s about.

In short, anything you do repetitively as a movement or any position you hold for significant amounts of time, trains your body and brain.

For example, when you sit a lot at a desk and let your shoulders slump forward, you are shortening muscles in your chest and shoulders. When you keep two ends of a muscle closer together, the muscle actually remodels (Davis’ Law) and becomes shorter. Opposing muscles (antagonists) that perform the opposite action (in this case the retraction of your shoulders) become elongated and weak. Your body and brain are literally memorizing this faulty posture.
In addition, this posture is usually combined with a forward head position which additionally causes muscles in your neck and upper shoulders to become tight as well.

Similarly, if you do a specific motion repetitively (e.g. hammering nails) you repeatedly use the same muscles in the same way—similar force, movement pattern, range of motion etc. These muscles too can become “over”-developed and tight. If this is a one-sided movement, you’ll also have a discrepancy between the side you use and the one you don’t.

So, what’s the big deal?

Well, there may be a bunch of big deals. Here are a couple.

First, there are usually direct results of these short muscles and compacted joints. For example, when your shoulders slump forward and those related muscles become tight, you are shrinking passageways in your front shoulders through which pass nerves, tendons, blood vessels, lymph vessels etc. Possible long term results include pain, nerve damage, joint degeneration, arthritis and muscle damage.
Similarly, the muscles that contract from the faulty posture, themselves compress structures in the body. For example, tight neck and shoulder muscles can compress nerves and cause headaches, nausea, arm pain, carpal tunnel syndrome (see next blog post) and more.

Next, remember the kids’ song about the thigh bone being connected to the hip bone and so on? Well, the message there is that our body parts are all connected and related and you can infer from that that change in one place can have effects somewhere else.

A hypothetical example. Think of that same slumping seated posture, with forward head tilt. The slumping forward of the head and upper torso has a tendency over time to cause an overall rounding of the spine so that the tailbone gets tucked under and the lower back curve is reduced or disappears. One result of this is that when standing the ankle joints go into partial plantar flexion (like you’re pointing your toes a little.) That tightens and shortens the calf muscles. You go on walking around with this multi-joint dysfunction. Maybe, over time this causes Achilles tendonitis or plantar fascitis. If that were to happen, it’s unlikely that your doctor would talk to you about sitting up straighter at your desk, even though that may well be the root cause.

This is just one example, but the simple lesson here is to try and maintain good posture.
The slightly deeper lesson is that your posture is important in ways you probably haven’t imagined. And that correcting it may eliminate things you had no idea were connected.

Do what you can to keep correct posture and movement patterns and learn what needs to be stretched and what needs to be strengthened in order to do that. Most important is to start being aware of your posture and doing what you can to feel long, poised and relaxed whenever possible.
And keep checking with us to learn more.

We look forward to helping you towards greater and greater wellness.

Be well.