Dax Moy Personal Training, the UK's Premier Personal Trainer and his elite team in Islington, London
Posture
Article by Dax Moy, NASM Performance Enhancement Specialist,
Master Personal Trainer and pioneer of Functionally Integrated Training
(F.I.T) System
April 2002
Today's
society is plagued by postural imbalances. So much so that statistics
show that over 80% of us will experience lower back pain at least once
during the course of our lives, with many of us suffering repeat
episodes on a regular basis. It's never been a better time to be an
osteopath, physiotherapist, chiropractor or massage therapist!
Unfortunately, even these eminently qualified
and well-intentioned health care professionals will very rarely be in a
position to afford much more than pain relief in the short term, as
they deal primarily with the effects of postural distortion: pain,
range of motion limitations etc. Simply put, the one or two visits per
week with your therapist do not effectively counter the postural
effects of 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
This is not an attack on the complimentary
health fraternity. They have a success rate so far in advance of
traditional medicine that the two do not even compare! The point being
made here is that in most cases of lower back pain and joint
dysfunction the cause is postural and can only be corrected by the
individual living 'within' the affected posture.
It's time to focus on cause rather than effect.
What causes postural distortion patterns to occur?
In a word: Life. The cumulative effects of our lives create the
postures we wear. Unfortunately, modern lifestyles are about 180
degrees out of phase with the intended use of the human body.
Excessive time spent in seated postures at
work, the car, the bus and in front of the TV are the main culprits
here but aren't the only problem areas. Surprisingly, the much-hailed
'magic pill' of exercise shares a lot of the blame too!
Poorly designed exercise programs (that's most
of them) have been shown to increase postural stress, alter
length-tension relationships between opposing muscle groups and create
pattern overload including repetitive strain injury, tendonitis and
bursitis. Not to mention the fact that you'll probably spend half of
your time at the gym sitting down!
Leg press machines, shoulder press machines,
chest presses, lat-pulldowns and even exercise bikes are all designed
so that you can push, pull and pedal from a sitting position. But
wasn't that why most of our clients came in - to relieve their bodies
from the sitting position they've been in all day?
The subject of posture and its relationship to
human performance should be the primary concern of all exercise
professionals who are serious about helping their clients to achieve
their goals.
Posture is the very foundation of strength,
power, balance, agility and endurance and as such requires close
inspection before further training is prescribed - if you try to build
on poor foundations don't be surprised if your building crumbles!
According to Paul Chek, internationally accredited corrective exercise specialist, ideal posture is:
'That state of muscular and skeletal balance which protects the
supporting structures of the body against injury or progressive
deformity, irrespective of the attitude in which these structures are
working or resting ' (Chek 2001).
The key to the above statement is the word balance.
'Muscle imbalance occurs when a particular agonist is significantly
stronger than its antagonist, or when one or the other is abnormally
shortened' (Norris 2000).
This second statement highlights the biggest
problem that we face as exercise professionals; encouraging our clients
to address their postural or exercise induced imbalances.
Many people commence exercise programs with
purely aesthetic goals in mind. This is fine - we all want to look
good! Unfortunately, the current paradigm for exercise prescription is
based upon bodybuilding methodology with its primary emphasis on
mobiliser strength and hypertrophy. This would not necessarily be a
problem if muscular size and tone were your clients' primary goal (it
is for many) however most exercisers lack the interest and commitment
to develop the relatively balanced (if somewhat large) physiques of
bodybuilders and adopt a 'mirror muscle' mentality. If you can see it
in the mirror you train it- if not, you don't.
This approach to exercise creates dysfunction
within joints and their surrounding musculature and is in part
responsible for postural distortion patterns and the subsequent pain
that they cause.
At this point I can hear many of you thinking
'this doesn't effect me, I always pair up agonist / antagonist groups
and apply whole body stretching techniques to my clients programs''. If
only it were that simple!
Any evident postural distortion is usually part
of a chain reaction with numerous adaptations and compensations
occurring at once with each new compensation creating its own
'offspring' thus compounding the problem until injury is inevitable. By
this stage it's too late! Again we're dealing with effect and again
it's our clients that suffer.
What can we do about it?
- 1.
Get back to basics. Improve your knowledge of functional anatomy,
biomechanics and kinesiology and learn how to apply that knowledge to
'real life' situations.
- 2. Learn how to identify the common postural distortion patterns and kinetic chain dysfunctions that cause them.
- 3.
Make postural correction techniques the foundation of your exercise
prescription and progress through the stabilisation - strength - power
continuum at a rate that allows optimum postural alignment during
functional movement patterns.
Conclusion
If postural distortion were merely an aesthetic problem one might be
forgiven for dismissing it as being of minor importance to those who
partake in regular exercise. However, the resultant faulty movement
patterns can (and do) give rise to chronic pain syndromes and
disabilities that affect quality of life and choke the NHS with 'self
inflicted wounds'.
As exercise professionals we have a duty of
care to those who seek out our services. If we ignore fundamentals such
as posture and functional integrity aren't we endangering our clients
and setting them (and ourselves) up for failure? Worth thinking about!
Part 2 of this article will teach you how to identify postural distortion pattern and understand why they occur.