Posture and Alignment

I held a 2 session posture and alignment workshop for Mothers and Daughters the past two weekends and was pleased with the turn-out.  I was grateful that a lot of Mothers realize the importance of good posture practice and what positive and rewarding results this awareness brings to their lives.  The first session focused on posture and teaching the group the importance of keeping the natural curves to our spine while sitting and standing and during sports activities.  Most of us stand hunched over, sit slouched and unfortunately due to the consistency of the bad sitting and standing posture carry the bad habits into our sports activities which lead to sports injuries.

We discussed the way others view those that have bad posture and they learned that many of the reviews from others can be negative.  You look shorter, less confident, appear disinterested and less focused, sloppy and even lazy.   None of which would do well if going for a job interview.  Not to mention, bad posture can make you less memorable.

We discussed that our bad posture re-molds our body over time.  Unfortunately since technology has improved and our younger generations are using cell phones, video games and laptops this re-molding is occurring faster in the children and young adults compared to the past.  This is frightening that young adults have the “hump” early in life because of their sitting habits.  Scary!

We discussed the side effects of practicing bad posture.  Some side effects are neck pain, back pain, fatigue, less oxygen due to the collapsed chest cavity, the big hump on the back, a forward head and headaches.   They say 95% of headaches are caused from a forward head posture.

The group discussed how when our body is out of alignment and a move is repeated over and over an injury to our body is occurring over time. We did some simple test on everyone to see what muscles in their legs naturally fired (worked) compared to muscles in their legs that were not firing.  This is what we call a muscle imbalance.  We all have them.  Muscle imbalance may over time wreak  havoc on our body creating pain and worse injuries just from the way we walk, sit, sleep or do exercise.     For example, I walk like a duck, (my feet turn away from each other).   This means my inner thighs tend not to fire and the muscles on the outside of my legs and butt over fire, creating an imbalance.

All in all, I was very happy with the group of 40+ Mothers and Daughters and have enjoyed hearing their stories of how their daughters’ backs are sore from sitting up straight because they do not want that hump on their backs. 

Happy Day!! MaryAnne