Postural Restoration

[Diane]

Barrett, I took the liberty of sticking the the thread to the top of the forum with the others.

[Keats Snideman]

Hello all! This is my first post on this forum and it's taken me a while becasue I wanted to read all of this thread first to be up to date with the discussions. Anyway, I really enjoy the dialogue around here and look forward to entering the discussions.

[Diane]

Welcome to somasimple Keats. Feel free to chime in on whatever you'd like.

[Keats Snideman]

Posture Questions

Hello all, I am about to give a seminar on postural/client evaluation to a group of mostly personal trainers and Strenth and Conditioning Coaches at Charles Staley's Annual Fitness Summit here in Phoenix on the weekend of October 14th.

The title of my talk is "Outrunning The Posture Police!" The basic jist of it is that while body awareness and postural management are important, posture (as a static entity) is not. I've long been a fan of Barrett's writings and acutally encouraged Charles Staley to interview Barrett over the phone for his coaching group last year. It was a great and informative talk. Anyway, I'd like to post a couple of my major points for the talk and get any of your opinions or suggestions on how to make this an informative and belief-altering presentation. Here they are:

1. Asymmetircal posutre is actually normal. Totally symmetry is abnormal.

2. To try to "even" everyone out can actually lead to greater pain and dysfunciton (i.e. heel lift under the short leg).

3. There is little to no correlation between posture and pain and posture and strength.

4. Even a so-called "ideal" posture held for too long will become painful. What's more important is to keep moving around to find what's most comfortable to you at the moment.

5. Total Stability IS Total Unstability. You need some constant sway and moving around to keep your nervous system informed as to the status of your body and your surroundings.

6. The whole tonic/phasic muscle imbalance is far too simplistic to explain pain and to dictate rehabilitation.

7. More stuff but that's enought for now.

Any releveant research or thoughts on the above points would be appreciated. Thanks.

[Barrett Dorko]

Keats,

It sounds like you've got it together. My advice is that you wear a helmut.

I recall the interview and enjoyed doing that. Please tell Charles I never got the promised recording.

[nari]

Hi Keats,

Your points, to me, are all correct and valid. To argue against them would involve a heck of a lot of backup research and there's not much out there to support "poor posture and pain are bedfellows"...

Nari

[anoopbal]

Hello Keats

Good points. Do you have some study which shows posture and pain are not related?

I think the real problem would to say ther is no evidence for posture and pain, and then not been able to provide evidence for things you said like evening out can cause more pain, assymetry is inherent and so on.

I think changing posture can improve ROM. Atleast a couple of studies have shown that.I think for athletes this increase ROM might be benficial.Also the change in joint position with rounded shoulders might have something to do impingement.Probabaly wont show up for a normal person, but "might" be a probelm for people who are trying to lift heavier weights in a progressive fashion or people who are involved in sporst which involve a lot of overhead action.

Also somone might ask about how for a normal person it wont mater much but for an athlete who delas with really high stresses, posture might have an effect. Like how foot pronation ina few studies have shown to be involved( highly correlated) in running injuries.

And I thimk muscle balance has some significance. Atleast Michael Shacklock talks about how muscle imbalances can cause nerve compression and suggest to refer to Sahramann for motor control problems to fix the muscle dysfuntion besides treating the nerve.

Anoop

[Keats Snideman]

Keats,

It sounds like you've got it together. My advice is that you wear a helmut.

I recall the interview and enjoyed doing that. Please tell Charles I never got the promised recording.

Barrett, I will wear the helmet. Also, I will talk to Charles about getting you a copy of the interview. Thanks, and I look forward to being part of this on-line community.

[Keats Snideman]

Hello Keats

Good points. Do you have some study which shows posture and pain are not related?

I think the real problem would to say ther is no evidence for posture and pain, and then not been able to provide evidence for things you said like evening out can cause more pain, assymetry is inherent and so on.

I think changing posture can improve ROM. Atleast a couple of studies have shown that.I think for athletes this increase ROM might be benficial.Also the change in joint position with rounded shoulders might have something to do impingement.Probabaly wont show up for a normal person, but "might" be a probelm for people who are trying to lift heavier weights in a progressive fashion or people who are involved in sporst which involve a lot of overhead action.

Also somone might ask about how for a normal person it wont mater much but for an athlete who delas with really high stresses, posture might have an effect. Like how foot pronation ina few studies have shown to be involved( highly correlated) in running injuries.

And I thimk muscle balance has some significance. Atleast Michael Shacklock talks about how muscle imbalances can cause nerve compression and suggest to refer to Sahramann for motor control problems to fix the muscle dysfuntion besides treating the nerve.

Anoop

I don't really have any specific studies saying that posture and pain are unrelated, but I know I've got some references (somewhere) that say that there are people who have all kinds of nasty things on imaging studies (MRI's, X-rays, etc..) who have no pain or symptoms whatsoever. And then of course there are the people who show up with fairly "good" posture (when compared to the ideal according ot Kendall, etc..) who are racked with pain.

My point is that there are so many factors that will contribute to whether or not someone will experience physical pain and posture is just one piece of the puzzle. You can't put all your eggs in one basket (i.e. the posture basket)! I used to be the captain of the posture police and really tried to "fix" everybody so they matched the ideal of what so-called "healthy" people are supposed to look like. What I now try to instill in my clients are healthy and more efficient/effective movement strategies that MAY involve some better mechanical postures/positions depending on what they are doing at the moment.

[BB]

Hi Keats,

There is an article from Nicholas Lucas on the cranio-cervical flexion test that you might find interesting on this thread.

All of the articles on that thread are interesting. If you can't access it, you'll need access to the somasimpler's group. If that's the case, just ask Bernard and he'll hook you up.

Also,
Anoop, you mentioned impingement positions and posture. Remember, that just because a tissue is being stressed does not mean it will hurt. There is actually some good research that shows most tendonitis is actually a case of tendonosis. This means that the tissue has been inflamed repeatedly, for a long time, to the point the the inflamatory response is stunted and the tendon becomes degenerated, and often never hurt. There is also good evidence that this progresses to a rotator cuff tear in older individuals, and this is often asymptomatic. Impinged tissue doesn't mean pain.

Thanks!

[anoopbal]

My point is that there are so many factors that will contribute to whether or not someone will experience physical pain and posture is just one piece of the puzzle. You can't put all your eggs in one basket (i.e. the posture basket)! I used to be the captain of the posture police and really tried to "fix" everybody so they matched the ideal of what so-called "healthy" people are supposed to look like. What I now try to instill in my clients are healthy and more efficient/effective movement strategies that MAY involve some better mechanical postures/positions depending on what they are doing at the moment.

Thats exactly my point too. Pain is multifactroial. And posture "might" be on of them. I just wrote that bcos I dont see this in your first post. I think you will be better received if you say postural fixing might help and thats its not as black and white as many people think rather than saying posture has nothing to do with pain.

I had this big deabte with Eric Creesey abt postural fixing like couple of years back.He had writen this thre part series about postural fixing.And finally he admiited there is only a correlation between pain and posture.

It might also help if you talk how complex pain can be , especially chronic pain. ANd most people equate acute pain to chronic pain. I think most people just think in that old way of pain is linear to the extent of injury. Talking about phantom pain, how pain is involved even without tissues in a normal individual might make them understand the complexity of pain.

Anoop

[anoopbal]

Anoop, you mentioned impingement positions and posture. Remember, that just because a tissue is being stressed does not mean it will hurt. There is actually some good research that shows most tendonitis is actually a case of tendonosis. This means that the tissue has been inflamed repeatedly, for a long time, to the point the the inflamatory response is stunted and the tendon becomes degenerated, and often never hurt. There is also good evidence that this progresses to a rotator cuff tear in older individuals, and this is often asymptomatic. Impinged tissue doesn't mean pain.

Thanks. Do you have any studies on this or articles?

Anoop

[BB]

Yes. I've got them at work. I'll find them tomorrow and post the pubmed links.

[Synergy]

I just wanted to add to Cory's comment regarding the -itis versus -osis in epicondyle pain. I believe there was a histological study that showed an absence of inflammatory cells present in the ECRB.

Moved your last post to The Sound Of Silence
Lateral Epicondylalgia or Epicondylitis

[anoopbal]

Hi BB

Did you get a chance to look for the studies? Thanks

Anoop