Stand tall and breathe,7 benefits of great posture
Posture is the sum total of muscle balance, structural alignment and coordinated patterning of movement. The cool thing about posture is that we can train our bodies to have optimal alignment, which in turn provides numerous benefits.
Posture is happening both when we are still, like when we are sitting, meditating, sleeping, stretching. It is also happening when we are active, exercising, working, playing. Posture is 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 352 days per year, continuous, dynamic and an essential element to healthy living.
Developing good posture can take a little work, but can be well worth the time and effort, and here is why.
- Better lung capacity
Great posture always starts at the absolute centre of the body, the breath, or respiration.
The breath, or more accurately the diaphragm is an incredibly important muscle, responsible for respiration, or breathing. When the diaphragm contracts it expands the rib cage creating a pressure gradient within the thorax, this atmospheric differential then draws air into the lungs as the ribs expand
By practicing correct breathing it is possible to improve the mechanical efficiency of the lungs by increasing the space inside the thorax with the inhalation. Often it’s not that we are getting hypertrophy of the breathing muscles (they tend to be slow oxiadative), but rather, recruiting a larger percentage of the respiration muscles. Like any muscle in the body, it can be trained, and the training effects generally come in either increased muscle fibre activation, increased size, or both.
A diaphragm that is not being used correctly is an indicator of a very dysfunctional core and spinal column, and may lead to a whole range of mechanical pain issues, such as severe lower back pain from an excessive lordosis developed by overactive lumber extensor muscles which are trying to perform a pseudo inhalation by placing the thoraic spine into extension, and there by passively expanding the rib cage.
It is estimated that working on respiration can increase lung capacity by 20 -30 percent, allowing a greater volume of air to be drawn into the lungs. Not a bad pay back for 5 - 10 minutes of deep breathing exercises per day.
- Decreased pain
Developing posture can often resolve niggling aches and pains. Headaches may suddenly lessen in severity and duration, lower back pain starts to ease off, and shoulder issues may resolve simply by working on correct body alignment.
Muscles tend to have a specific job or role, and when they are constantly overworked, stressed, or loaded in the incorrect way, pain can result.
This pain is often difficult to pinpoint, a massage or good stretch may provide some relief put the discomfort returns. There may be a particular work role, or exercise that’s is creating a muscle imbalance which in turn establishes a pain cycle, overuse, mechanical stress, which starts translating into pain.
Muscles are designed to work within synergies, coupling with other muscles to perform their jobs. The triceps lateral head for example may be more involved in elbow extension, whereas the tricep long head may work as a scapula stabilizer to provide a foundation for the arm to move. Well, the tricep long head, plus the other 17 or so muscles involved in scapula movement.
If they these synergies are not synchronous, then it may cause mal alignment of joints. Joints, and connective tissue which are jam full of nerve fibres that signal back to the spinal cord to keep the body updated. Mechano receptors themselves feedback regarding forces going through the joints. Pain signals are often as a result of improper force distribution across joints, or through soft tissue structures.
If posture is aligned, then over firing of pain related nerve signalling can be reduced significantly. Additionally reducing muscle tension will allow a muscle to relax and decrease the metabolic demand and energy production at the cellular level. This is turn reduce the build-up of waste products, which often result in formation of nodules and trigger points within the muscle. When a trigger point forms, the fibres are not uncoupling and returning to their normal resting state. This then effect the entire muscle, placing it under tension. This tension creates pain, either in the local area, or often in a referral pattern.
Working on alignment can reduce mechanical based pain by simply placing the muscles in the right position so they can perform their jobs correctly
- Improved performance
From a physical performance perspective posture can be directly related to technique, form equals function. For example, in squatting the correct alignment of all the joints is integral to successful lifting. Foot and ankle position directly affect the recruitment of the quadriceps, if the ankle is slightly everted too far it can predispose the knee into a vulgus position (knee tracks medially). When the knee roll in medially the quadriceps group does not get an evenly distributed recruitment pattern, with either the medial or lateral compartment becoming over dominant.
An uneven muscle recruitment pattern can the set up a dysfunctional range of movement. As with a knee that is tracking too medially, the knee joint itself is not placed in an optimal position to allow the tibia and femur to glide across each other. This in its self will limit knee flexion mechanically as one aspect of tibis is jammed into the other femur. The body will then try to shift position to remove this tension in the joint, which will generally occur at a joint above, or below, being the hip or ankle, and thus dysfunction goes up the kinetic chain.
If we take time to correctly align foot positioning, and then layer in all the other posture and alignment ques that goes into performing a good squat then performance in itself can improve drastically. This is simply because everything is doing what its meant to be doing, the body stops fighting itself, and energy expenditure is optimized into producing quality movement.
- Relaxation
It has been shown that five minutes of deep abdominal breathing can produce a physiological state of relaxation by allowing the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) to engage. The PNS is the all about restoration and regeneration, it happens most often when you are asleep, allowing the body a chance to replenish, restore and revitalise.
Deep breathing techniques, such as often practice in mediation, martial arts, dance and yoga have been used for many years to produce focus, clarity and a sense of calm. The art in these practices often come with a focus on the breath, as the diaphragm is truly the centre of the body.
Developing good posture requires a deep understanding of breath, and with it, relaxation. With stress being a large contributing factor to many health conditions, learning how to breath can make a big difference in allowing people to manage their hectic days.
- Increased core stability
Often when working on posture we incorporate a lot of diaphragm – abdominal breathing exercises. The link to the diaphragm and the core musculature is very important, and can require a fair bit of practice to really enhance the function of the inner torso musculature which is integral to spinal column health.
The diaphragm is one of the largest muscles in the body, with physical attachments to the lumbar vertebrae in addition to most of the thoracic. It also has a very important agonist – antagonist relationship the Rectus Abdominus, Obliques, Transverse Abdominus and fascial connections to the hip flexors. Essentially, when the diaphragm is contracting on the inhalation, the abdominals are relaxing, and vice vrsea on the exhalation. When these muscle are working syngistically a powerful connection to the spinal column is created where there is stability at all times during respiration.
This synergy then translate down the kinetic chain to the deep guteal muscles, whose primary job is to stabilize the pelvis. When the abdominals are contracting the, deep gluteals are also contracting, particularly in single leg movements such as running, hopping, and jumping.
Additionally the scapula stabilizers are connected to the diaphragm, with the serratus anterior and lower trapezius contracting with the exhalation. The exhalation is often the phase in upper limb movement that requires the greatest amount of stability, when the maximum amount force is generated, such as in the up phase of a bench press.
Improving posture will enhance coresatbility
- Decreased joint wear and tear
Focus on posture during movement can substantially decrease the wear and tear on joints, and help avoid such nasty conditions as arthritis, soft tissue injury, and impingement syndromes.
Essentially posture can be viewed as exercise technique, placing the body in the correct position to allow functional movement. Joints, where one bone connects to another are often concave/convex in nature, having a rounded surface, ideally when joints move the bones want to apply even forces across the joint surfaces. This then allows the joint cartilage to absorb the loading evenly, and thus maintaining joint integrity.
Exercise technique has its foundations in posture, knowing how to align the joints so that the working muscles can do their work efficiently. A joint that is not aligned correctly and then is loaded with force, can over time wear down cartilage and other connective tissue. Additionally the mal alignment may produce irritation of other structures, such as bursas and tendons, examples being the common subacromial (shoulder) and trochantic (hip) bursitis.
Ideal posture during movement often eliminates many niggly joint issues before they can start.
- Muscle balance
Muscle can only pull, they cannot push, so to maintain muscle balance, nearly every muscle in the body has an opposing muscle which does the opposite movement.
For example the Bicep flexes the elbow, and the Tricep extends the elbow.
Muscle balance is about ensuring that the agonist, antagonist, synergists and stabilizers are all working in the correct order, alignment and sequence.
Muscle balance may also relate to muscle groups being of equal function, such as the left hamstrings have similar length and strength to the right hamstring. If there is a difference in the ratio of strength and length between the hamstrings, then uneven muscle contractions across both the hip and knee can result in rotational imbalances across the hip and the knee, and develop uneven joint compressions resulting in wear and tear of the joint. This may been seen as hip drops, knee rolls, and a whole range of technique based issues that may be related to muscle imbalance.
Working on muscle balance can in itself eliminate many problems.
Working on developing great Posture often takes a certain type of movement honestly to really explore where your individual imbalances are and to then work on them. It is an ongoing process that is well worth the time and energy, especially as your body start to perform, breathe, and move better, with less pain, avoiding injury whilst staying in a more chilled out state of mind.
By Andrew Dowler, an Accredited Exercise Physiologist with Exercise Sports Science Australia (ESSA) with over 18 years clinical experience in postural exercise prescription. Andrew also designed and presents the Posture Analysis & Exercise Prescription course.
