When we hear posture, we think of a static position, back straight, chin tucked etc.… and overtime it builds in our mind an understanding of posture that is holding our body in a certain way for a certain period.
Traditionally, manual therapists have learned to assess posture by comparing the posture of their patients against images of an upright skeleton. Not surprisingly, the postures of many of us are observed to vary from those represented by the skeletal images that we refer to standard posture.
The disadvantage of this approach is that we tend to focus on the parts rather than the whole. What I mean by that is the therapist might observe a client’s neck to have a deviation compared to the standard posture and conclude that the problem is the neck. Yet we need to take a broad view of clients and their bodies to identify the factors causing or contributing to their problems, because where a client experience pain, discomfort, restriction in movement is not necessarily the source of the problem (Johnson, 2012).
The most important basic and fundamental function of our skeletal and muscular system is to create movement. As human, we are a multilimbed dynamic organism meaning that we cannot be defined by only one posture. So, is there such thing as a “good posture”?
Any static state in which the body finds itself is only part of a movement, meaning that posture is a temporarily position held by the body in preparation for the next position. Posture follows movement like a shadow; therefore, a static position is not a good posture (Solberg, 2008).
Our body is designed to move, and we shouldn’t hold a static position for a long period of time.
Work Cited:
Johnson, J. (2012). Postural Assessment. Human Kinetics. Solberg, D. G. (2008). Postural disorder and musculoskeletal dysfunction: Diagnosis, prevention and treatment. Elsevier.
