WHAT IS GOOD POSTURE AND WHY DOES YOUR PELVIC FLOOR CARE?

Perfect Posture Is Like The Perfect Breeze....
​Ever Changing And Yet So Powerful

Yet another patient this week asked me if they are supposed to squeeze their shoulder blades and stand up straighter to have better posture. It happens weekly that a client perceives good posture as ONE good position to hold throughout the day. Nothing could be further from the truth.  Good posture is ever changing. 

Think of GOOD POSTURE like a state of being not a one size fits all position. Infact, maybe we just need to obliterate the term “good posture” from our mindset. The singularity in the idea of “good posture” is toxic and defeating. 

“Good posture” is really the body’s ability to create a stable platform for movement throughout all of your movements in a day. Maybe we should consider good posture an “activated state of being.”  Think of moving easily and freely and more importantly with strength and stability. That is good posture. Good posture is essentially the ability to move easily off of a stable platform.  

The key to good posture is engaging your best breath in each position so that your deep core muscles and pelvic floor can work unitedly to support your system.. Yes, slouching is not the best- it puts a ton of pressure on your low back and pelvic floor and can translate shifts all the way to your head causing upper back pain and headaches.  But, that being said, neither is sitting up so straight that your chest is pointing to the sun and your ribs angle out in front of your pelvis. In this position you can’t actually connect your diaphragm with your pelvic floor to create a connected breath that unites the back, abdominals and pelvic floor with the diaphragm to create stability.

 Good posture is a bit different for us all and it really can be summed up as the place where you can connect your breath from your diaphragm to your pelvic floor. It is where your body can work at its best and most efficiently for whatever task you take on.

Signs of Subtle Postural Dysfunction or Postural Weakness

• Have you ever noticed that it is harder to sit in your chair or stand in one spot for any length of time than it is to keep moving???
• Do you always stand with legs spread wide? Knees locked?
• Do you always tend to cross your arms when you stand for a long period of time?
• Do you sway left to right in standing or bias your weight to one leg much of the time?
• Do you constantly shift in sitting left to right, crossing and uncrossing your legs?
• Do you look for a wall to lean against when you are stuck standing for a long time?
• Do you have chronic back and pelvic pain? 
• Do you hate sitting or standing still for any length?
• Do you leak urine? Postural dysfunction can promote incontinence!
• If you exercise, do you prefer to blast through your reps with speed and power and find moving slower more difficult? 

Postural control begins when we are babies learning to sit. When babies develop they must develop the ability to hold a body part steady against gravity before they can use their body to create mobility for activities like crawling. As adults it is obviously unlikely that you will lose full mobility when you begin to lose stability. But what does happen is that you find new strategies to get the job done that either create immediate pain/dysfunction or set you up for failure down the road. This is not to say that some compensations  are not necessary and beneficial.  But, ass adults it is easy to begin to over utilize the mover muscles we are most conscious of and underutilize postural muscles we were designed to rely on. So, instead of worrying if your shoulders are back, think about how much your breath translates deep into your body in any given position.

Not sure how your posture is impacting your back pain or pelvic pain? Call for your complimentary Discovery call today!

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