Posture, Redefined.
Lots of experts seem very convinced that there are many ways to FIX YOUR POSTURE FAST with THIS ONE QUICK TIP or EXERCISE that STOPS LOWER BACK PAIN FOR GOOD!
All of them rely on the premise that if you simply stretch or strengthen the right muscles, you can change your appearance, reduce pain, and increase limited ranges of motion. Sometimes it works well enough.
But what if posture could be changed without stretching or strengthening any muscles at all?
That would mean that muscle stiffness is only a symptom, not a primary problem.
If muscles don’t matter, then what even is posture?
What Is Posture, Really?
In a traditional sense, your posture is the position your body assumes while sitting, standing, or lying down. Most laypeople and experts alike assume that “maintaining good posture” requires constant discipline and effort, and a smorgasbord of apps, trinkets, shoulder harnesses and wearable alarms are available for purchase to reinforce this concept.
But here’s the problem: forced posture isn’t your real posture. It’s a temporary pose that your muscles can’t sustain forever. Once fatigue sets in, your body relaxes back into its natural position… that’s the true posture you live in every day, under all of the compensation.
So when we talk about “posture,” perhaps it’s more useful to talk about “passive posture,” since it more accurately reflects the alignment of the skeleton without all of the extra effort and brainpower needed to hold it upright throughout the day (I call this “stress”.)
How can we tell the difference between good posture and bad posture?
The Slump Test: A Standard For Self-Evaluation
Testing yourself is easy: stand, take a deep breath in, breathe out, and let your body completely relax. This is known as the “Slump Test.” It exposes your natural alignment, free of muscular “cheating.”
Try it in front of a mirror. If your posture isn’t very different after consciously relaxing, and you’re upright, stable and relaxed, then you are compensating efficiently. The weight of your body is resting on your bones, where it belongs, and not on your muscles.
If your head drops, hips push forward, tummy sticks out, shoulders sag, or you feel your muscles tense up or weight shifting about, your alignment is sub-optimal and you need your muscles to help. Your treatments at Standwell are not over until this collapse is eliminated.
Navigating a World Full of Quick Fixes
The Slump Test will also tell you if your shoes are wrecking your posture, if the seat of your computer chair is angled correctly, which yoga poses are destabilizing your body, and if your chiropractic adjustments are actually correcting your mechanics.
Your relaxed posture is your definitive guide to what is helping you and what is not. Your intake appointment will physically demonstrate numerous examples of this.
Standwell’s One Weird Tip (that everybody hates)
The truth is that you can’t systematically correct your mechanics with stretching, exercise, or discipline cues, and anyone claiming otherwise is selling you a compensation strategy.
This does not mean that compensation strategies are a bad idea or a complete waste of time. Getting a stronger core will certainly help protect your lower back. Getting a nice massage or stretching muscles or stabbing them with needles over and over again will certainly loosen them up (for a time) and maybe that‘s good enough for your purposes.
But we can prove that muscles aren’t responsible for your posture. Posture is a symptom of alignment, and a well-aligned person does not have to try to hold their body upright. Read that a few times until it sticks, then click the button below to start your journey.