Correcting Poor Posture
Correcting Poor Posture – poor posture can can develop from a wide range of causes such as injury, stress, back misalignment, poor muscle tone to mention a few.
Behavioral habits can often be the root cause of poor posture.
- Carrying a school bag in one hand
- A heavy handbag
- Wearing high heels
- Sitting in front of a computer
- Hunched over your cell phone
- Slouching in a chair
- Sticking your bottom out
- Standing with a flat back
- Leaning on one leg
- Poking your chin forward
- Rounded shoulders
- Cradling your phone with your neck
Treatment
A plumb line (gravity line) is taken from the ear through the shoulder about half way through the mid trunk passing through the lumbers and neck vertebrae. The plumb line then falls through the hip (greater trochanter and then just forward of the knee and ankle.
Chiropractors improve postural distortion by adjusting the spine to improve positional sense (proprioception) and providing specific exercises to strengthen weak postural muscle and relax over active or shortened muscle groups.
Posture is something that has far reaching consequences to the whole human frame. It involves not only the tendency to stoop forward but also lateral deviations like low shoulders or a raised pelvis. to mention just a few. The causes can be numerous from poor habits, sedentary lifestyle, sitting for extended periods to injuries or genetic tendency.
Our modern lifestyles using laptops and phones, children gaming or just sitting through 12 years or more of a school curriculum and then going on to a sedentary work environment, has left many in our generation as stooped kids and adults. The most common distortion is the forward head posture.
This posture places huge stress on the neck and forces the rest of the spine to adapt or compensate which can lead to complications in other parts of the spine and not just the neck.
Chiropractors are correcting poor posture by adjusting the spine and limbs to improve the bodies sense of position and then use exercises to strengthen weak postural muscle and relax over-tensed muscles.
Dr Nothling also uses a specific technique to enhance the normal adjustments for posture change. Although some patients will respond quicker than others, it depends on a number factors such as age and lifestyle habits and the actual cause of the distortion.
Before
After
In these example photos of correcting poor posture, the patients was asked to stand normally for the ‘before’ and ‘after’ photos. These postural changes are from changing the body’s positional sense only and the result is instant. In the post adjustment photos, the patients just naturally stand more erect after the adjustment.
Before
After