There are two things I commonly hear when first meeting a new patient that are typically said and followed by a defeated sigh and trailing off like Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh.
I know I don’t stretch enough…
I need to work on my posture…
My response, without fail, is “What makes you think I’m going to say you should stretch more or you need better posture?” Typically the answer to that question revolves around common misconceptions that stretching will reduce your risk of injury (false) and that “poor” posture is the cause of all your physical ailments (also false). The goal of this blog is to address complaint #2, stretching is an issue we can tackle on another day.
There is too much emphasis placed on the importance of static postures. The fitness community has spent a lot of time and money in an attempt to convince people that their static resting posture is super important and that maintaining good posture will ensure they never experience neck or low back pain. This is not the Australian Finishing School for etiquette training so ensuring your shoulders are always square and your back is straight just aren’t that important to me.
There are numerous systematic reviews and meta-analyses of the research that disagree on the relationship between posture and pain. There are numerous studies published in the past few years that have clearly identified a greater association between self-reported good posture and individuals experiencing neck pain and low back pain GASP! The best we can do at this point is say that, on occasion, your reported posture may be loosely correlated with your report of having ever experienced neck or low back pain.
There are plenty of times we instruct patients to exercise muscles that impact posture. Training the scapular retractors will often have an immediate and lasting effect on improving upright posture, but the goal of the exercise is to address weakness in scapular stabilization related to shoulder pain. Training the erector spinae muscle groups of the lower back will help you to sit upright for longer periods of time, but will have a massive impact on someone’s pain with cycling or carrying their child. The goal is improving someone’s ability to perform a functional task that is important to them, not to address a static posture. The conversation I have with patients focuses on whether specific postures are causing their symptoms. When that is the case, we should probably do something about it. Otherwise, the best posture is the next posture. Your ability to alter posture and positioning to meet the demands of a situation is far more important than any static posture.
As I write this, I am sitting with my head forward, massively arched back, and one leg crossed over the other. And if I’m being honest, it is super comfortable at the moment but probably won’t be if I stay this way for another 10 minutes. The majority of individuals will benefit from spending more time performing general exercise at the appropriate intensity, improving sleep hygiene, and working on the quality of their nutrition than they will from focusing on postural exercises.
If you are having pain or discomfort associated with a specific posture or would like to learn more about exercises that will strengthen postural muscles, book an appointment today with one of the experts at Rise!