The Importance of Maintaining Good Posture

One of the most common reasons I see people in my office for health problems is faulty posture.

Having poor posture will almost guarantee that you’ll have chiropractic structural problems. Luckily postural faults need not plague you—if you get proper chiropractic spinal and extremity adjustments and are put on a postural rehabilitation program.

What Constitutes Good Posture?

If you drop a line down from your head to your feet, it should pass directly through the following:

• Ear canal
• Shoulder joint
• Hip joint
• Knee joint
• Ankle joint

Effects of Poor Posture

The immediate effect of having poor posture is that you’ll start to develop abnormal pains in your body. These are pains that you have no idea why they’re there. You’ll begin to notice that you’ll have upper neck, back and low back pain. You may even develop foot, knee and hip pain.

How Do You Correct Poor Posture?

Step 1: Make sure you are analyzed by a competent chiropractic physician—preferably one who focuses on postural alignment and is also very familiar with Applied Kinesiology or Muscle Response Testing. When you call in to an office, ask the receptionist if the doctor uses Applied Kinesiology or Muscle Testing.

Step 2: Remove structural interferences in all affected joints. As chiropractors, we term these interferences “subluxations.” Subluxations interfere with your joints' normal motion—and restricted motion is the first step toward postural distortions.

Step 3: Focus on retraining the surrounding stabilizing muscles. This is most important to a lasting postural correction. Along with making sure the surrounding muscles are “firing at optimal,” your chiropractor should then make sure all the surrounding muscles move together in a synchronous pattern. When the muscles move synchronously, you decrease the wear and tear on the joint.

Step 4: Focus on general postural enhancing exercises. There are specific exercises that will help you to regain proper posture. Some include: chin-tuck, abdominal bracing and pelvic rocking.