Posture pressure and pain
Stand up straight! Chest up! These and other similar commands have been barked at most of us at least once in our lives. For many it’s a nearly daily banter or just part of the soundtrack to every other day. But these chastisements are more than just a holdover from the olden days. Posture matters, it’s crucially important to the unction of the body in numerous ways, beyond simply it aesthetic effects, blood flow, nerve function, and ROM are all impacted.
When the word posture comes up the neck and the back are the first areas of the body that comes to mind for most people. Theres good reason for this. Poor posture at the neck first and foremost is just not a good look. The cervical spine has two curves, the lower part curves towards the front of your body, the upper part towards the back of your body, and the head sits right on top with the curves acting as a built-in shock absorber and facilitating the movement combination that keep your head on a swivel. In our tech dominated world forward head posture, where the head juts forward kind of like a turtle, poking its head out of the shell. The shoulders are brought forward like you’re about to give a hug. This is often combined with the shoulders being hiked up towards the ears, as if stuck in a permanent shrug. This not only contributes headaches, but even carpal tunnel type symptoms can be caused by this posture.
The other more recent posture that is potentially more destructive is text neck. We’ve all seen it, and you may be doing it as you read this. The neck is when we bend our heads so far forward that at times the chin may even touch the chest. Most people don’t think of how heavy an adult head is, but it weighs an average of 8-12lbs. When that weight is directed straight down it’s no big deal. As the neck bends farther forward, it generates torque and adds a lot more strain on the structures of the head and neck. At 15 degrees bend you’re up to 27lbs, at 30 degrees its 40lbs, at 45 degrees its 50lbs, and at 60 degrees its 60lbs. These abnormal postures can result in numerous conditions including spine mis alignment, stenosis, nerve compression, headache, muscle imbalance and pain.
Further down the chain the lumbar spine is another crucial failure point when to comes to posture. The most common negative posture is an anterior pelvic tilt. Essentially your hips roll forward, increasing the arch in your back and sticking your butt out. This posture has become normalized as an easy way to make your butt look bigger. Over time this posture creates a point of friction in the spine where the facets come together. This friction results in inflammation and pain. The hip flexors in the front shorten making them more open to cramps, knots and spasms. The muscles in the back of the upper leg are kept in a lengthened position and this lowers their ability to generate force. If this posture is maintained for long enough the lumbar spine can slide off of the sacrum (spondylolisthesis) and this is often something that comes after spondylosis, which is a stress fracture caused from the friction this posture generates.
The good news is that all of this is completely avoidable with just a bit of discipline and activity modification. If you’ve been maintaining any of these bad postures long enough some of the changes may be permanent like the neck hump. It’s still never too late to do better. Fix the posture before the little hump becomes a big hump, or before a backache becomes a stress fracture. This is something you can fix on your own, but help is here for you. Invoke therapy offers skillful assessment with expert eyes and advanced technology that can help identify the abnormalities and their causes. By helping you improve perfect your posture at home and at work we reduce risk of pain and injury and improve your mobility and quality of life.
