Miles’ Magic Moves

We all have an idea of how a bad posture feels and a vague idea of how a good posture looks but very few of us know how to get to our optimum posture without either getting tied in knots or keeping a good efficient posture whilst being able to whistle and ride a bike at the same time.

A lot of us are concerned about being unbalanced from side to side with short legs and pelvic tilts of all kinds of unfathomable complexity. Trying to somehow straighten ourselves up from these kind of difficulties is not only more or less impossible it is also of doubtful value.
Although there many variations of postural problems that we have in our front to back balance the vast majority follow a similar pattern.

Just for now, never mind how we get there, but the hunched, swayed, slumped posture follows a logical but depressing pattern. We end up with our body weight concentrated above our toes rather than the mid foot. We brace our legs at the knee and hip joints thrust our hips forward so that even those lucky enough to be thin cannot see their toes. The low back is strained into more of a hollow than is good for it. The mid and upper back is excessively rounded allowing our shoulder blades into the “round shouldered” posture. Our neck pokes forward, like a tortoise and, so we can see where we are going, our head makes a last desperate effort to bend back.

The possibilities for where this sorry progression can cause pain are endless, but the most common ones are low back pain or girdle type rib pains on prolonged standing (so bus stops, bars and local footy games are a no no) and lower neck and upper back pain which can progress to headaches at the computer or behind the wheel.

So how do we get out of this sorry mess?

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