Posture

[sanjuro_ronin]

It is something that we tend to neglect but that can cause us some serious problems.
Posture, correct posture that is.
And I don't have it anymore

Freaking SPM and Boxing !!
All those years of hunching the back, caving the chest, tucking the chin, bringing the shoulder forward, have screwed up my posture when I am relaxed.
My shoulder are over rotated forwards too much, my chest isn't concaved but it is not aligned correctly and my neck/head'chin tend to "droop" forward more than they should.
Or so I was told by a physio guy

Is there a posture test one can do?

[KC Elbows]

I had a bit of that until last year. Started swimming regularly, and it went away.

Most of the strokes in swimming work a lot of the full range of motion of the shoulders. I'm wondering if there is an activity that as constantly works all that range.

If you switch up strokes especially.

Freestyle(head in water, not the water polo approach where your head is up out of the water for obvious reasons): The initial reach is definitely not something you can dragon back through, the hand reaching has to be turned out and reach far, not splice downward into the water. True, the pull that follows will be strong from that dragon back, but the overall action requires you to move in and out of dragon back, and a great deal of the effort will actually be on the motion that brings you out of dragon back.

Breast stroke: Again, when both hands are reaching forward, the shoulders extend in a way that doesn't promote dragon back, and the pull is not too bad, plus the breast stroke kick is great for kung fu, imo.

Back stroke: The regular back stroke is good for the range of motion on the shoulders. There's another stroke, I'm not sure it's called a back stroke, but it's on your back, and you bring your arms out like Jesus on the cross, then pull from there, it's good because you both get a good reach on the shoulders, and get to pull with the mighty shoulder nicely.

Most other strokes follow these in their shoulder use.

For those with South American or European heritage, a speedo will be required.

[KC Elbows]

Sorry, missed that you were asking about a posture test.

I believe most black belt tests are based on posturing.

Of course, not in mma, where it is considered best to do one's posturing online.

Thank you, don't forget to tip your mods.

[jdhowland]

That's good advice. Swimming is great for this.

Here's a simple postural check/exercise from the Lama style. Stand erect with the shoulders relaxed. Let the arms hang naturally, then rotate the palms outward as far as you can. Try to pull the shoulders down at the same time. Then try to center your head above your torso by raising the back of your neck.

It's simple and you can do it several times a day without much effort. Keeps you in touch with the middle trapezius and other scapular stabilizers if your shoulder blades have moved out too far.

SPM, Lung Ying, Lion boxing and all of that family tend to "close" the front and "open" the back. Maybe try a few moves from styles that like to open the chest for side power for balanced development.

I used to know an old guy with more than fifty years of training in dragon style. His techniques were amazing but when he stood naturally his back was still hunched and his hands stayed in front of his hips. Reminded me of a velociraptor. Not that i've seen many of those--i'm not that old.

jd

[KC Elbows]

Here's a simple postural check/exercise from the Lama style. Stand erect with the shoulders relaxed. Let the arms hang naturally, then rotate the palms outward as far as you can. Try to pull the shoulders down at the same time. Then try to center your head above your torso by raising the back of your neck.

I like that test!

Thank you, sir!

[Frost]

It is something that we tend to neglect but that can cause us some serious problems.
Posture, correct posture that is.
And I don't have it anymore

Freaking SPM and Boxing !!
All those years of hunching the back, caving the chest, tucking the chin, bringing the shoulder forward, have screwed up my posture when I am relaxed.
My shoulder are over rotated forwards too much, my chest isn't concaved but it is not aligned correctly and my neck/head'chin tend to "droop" forward more than they should.
Or so I was told by a physio guy

Is there a posture test one can do?

look up eric creaseys stuff, he does a functional screening test , also his neanderthal no more series of articles at T-nation (i know its T nation but they are good) can help with poor posture, it gives ways to spot the problems and corrective exercises for things like rounded back etc

http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_...no_more_part_i

[sanjuro_ronin]

Thanks for the advice guys

[chusauli]

It is something that we tend to neglect but that can cause us some serious problems.
Posture, correct posture that is.
And I don't have it anymore

Freaking SPM and Boxing !!
All those years of hunching the back, caving the chest, tucking the chin, bringing the shoulder forward, have screwed up my posture when I am relaxed.
My shoulder are over rotated forwards too much, my chest isn't concaved but it is not aligned correctly and my neck/head'chin tend to "droop" forward more than they should.
Or so I was told by a physio guy

Is there a posture test one can do?

LOL! Simian systems!

[taai gihk yahn]

posture is a tricky thing - personally, I have some serious misgivings about the whole approach taken by most PT's - I think that there r a lot of incorrec assumptions about how to characterize it, how to asess it, and how to address it

first thing, I tell most patients that there is no such thing as "correct" or "good" posture and no such thing as "bad" or "poor" posture;

instead, what I like to talk about is context dependent usage; I also talk about input / output;

my main reason for this is to remove the self-judgemental, value-based perspective that most people carry around all their lives: the know that they have "poor" posture and it becomes a guilt-based issue; this is not good, because it intereferes with one's ability to take an objective look at how one is living in space, and because it forces people to ive up to an abstract, external ideal that may not be what they "need";

for example, everyone is familiar with the old plumb line through the ear, shoulder, hip, ankle as an example of "correct" posture;

well, my first question i ask is this: if one is aligned that way, then at what point outside of that alignment is one's posture no longer "correct"? I mean, we don't stand still all day long, we move constantly - so the artifact of "correct" vertical alignment really doesn't apply; so how far outside of this ideal alignment can one go before the posture is not correct? 1 mm? 1 cm? etc. - really, there's no way to measure that, and as such, I don't find it useful;

the other thing is this - if someone has a "hunched" posture, there's a reason for it - usually, it's because something in the anterior chest is shortened / tight; so what the body is doing by adopting this posture is putting those tight structures on slack, in order to decrease the perceived tension in the system; now, if I make you stand up straight, I have now increased adverse tension and in this case, the aligned posture creates discomfort (and no, those shortened structures are not just going to magically lengthen out now that you are adopting a more vertical alignment

see, my question is this: if vertical alignment in posture is "correct", why doesn't the body assume it naturally? why does everyone have to "work" at proper posture? if it were so natural, the body would naturally adopt that position; but here's the problem: I believe that the truly "proper" posture is quadrupedal - which is what our spine was originally designed to work out of most if not all of the time - as soon as the spine goes vertical, it adopts a biomechanically inherently untenable context - and the best we can do is try to minimize the load by aligning it - but since we are not standing still all day, we really can't maintain that - and so we are using the spine in a way inconsistent with it's original "programming" (same with the guts, which are designed to hand verticaly and function on a horizontal plane - which is why you get so much congestion in the abdomen and pelvis over time, because the guts overly each other and the venous return is restricted - but anyway);

so, the first thing to consider is this: does one have symptoms / discomfort / decreased mobility? if so, then one has to consider the system as a whole, and assess what is the cause(s) of the dysfunction; if a pt has a markedly hunched posture, then that is one aspect of the assessment - but it's not necessarilly somthing that I want to go and try to change initially or even at all - instead, we want to look at muscle balance - for example, are pecs tight / facilitated and are lower traps inhibited / weak? usually, we find this; so we treat that, if indicated - either by passively releasing the anterior structures or actively thrusting the spinal segments that are anteriorized (usually T5/6, which cause inhibition of lower traps), or something else; then after adressing the areas of dysfunction, we can look at active movements (actually, you can have the patient activey move to self-treat as well, that's another option) and at vertical alignment;

when looking at vertical alignment, my goal is to help peope create a sense of spaciousness, of freedom in their movements - MA training is necesarily the opposite - a "binding" sort of movement quality, which makes sense if one is going to fight; so to balance out that habitus, there are various strategies to give someone a sense of more space in their tissues; doing this, one can then work with things like breathing (usually what I do first w/people, lying on their backs, allowing the breath to spontaneously manifest without conscious control but with non-judgemental awareness of the rhythmic changes), or respiratory / postural "noticing"; meaning that training people to notice when they hold their breath, when they fix into a certain position; then teaching them how to respond to that awareness (gently, not jerking out of it into a "correct" position) and how to maintain it dynamically throughout the day (this can take a while);

so, in the case of someone who is hunched over in their MA practice, the first step would be to identify ualitatively what that was like, and then to try to expand their awareness of alternate sort of body awareness that they could use to engender a more spaceous sort of usage when not in MA mode;

again, oine can do al this in a very general sense or one can give specific exercise (qigong, Alexander, Feldenkries, yoga, etc.) to help achieve this; but again, the goal is not to make someone adhere to an external ideal, but to find within themselves the solutions and then alow them to make the choice as they like; for example, I ask people, at the end of the day, when u come home and sit on ur couch to unwind, do you sit up straight or schlump? of course u sclump, if u didn't that would be bizzare; OTOH, when sitting at a computer at work, adoipting a schlump wud not be conducive to optimal physiological function - but also sitting up straight rigidly without deviating doesn't make much sense either; so it's a question of the dynamic interplay between various extremes and how one functions in the field of awareness such that one is able to dynamically adapt to the demands of a given context;

this way, there's no guilt, there is only open-ended exploration / discovery, which is ongoing and evolving constantly as one ages and also as one becomes more in tune

anyway, that's my take on it (and SJ - we can play w/some of this stuff perhaps when we come up in Sept... )

[taai gihk yahn]

That's good advice. Swimming is great for this.

Here's a simple postural check/exercise from the Lama style. Stand erect with the shoulders relaxed. Let the arms hang naturally, then rotate the palms outward as far as you can. Try to pull the shoulders down at the same time. Then try to center your head above your torso by raising the back of your neck.

It's simple and you can do it several times a day without much effort. Keeps you in touch with the middle trapezius and other scapular stabilizers if your shoulder blades have moved out too far.

this is a typical "scapular setting" exercise used by many PT's; it works more w/lower traps instead of middle, since middle traps won't drop the scaps downward to counteract uppers;

it's a good one to do in general, I like to think of it as a "wringing out" of the often locally congested tissues surrounding thoracic spine; it's especially good for people sitting all day long at computer screens; also, it can be individualy modified in various ways to get better effect or different effect depending on the circumstances - for example, doing it one side at a time, or doing it together with asymmetric contraction, or in a long isometric hold or a rhythmic pumping - lots of possibilities to optimize it; can also do rotating spine one way or another, it will change the effects dramatically at times...can also do with arms raised over head or out to the side or some combination of arms and spine rotation...

doing this one can actually have significant effect on cervicogenic headaches (muscle tension), since the root of most of those seems to be thoracic spine region restriction;

[taai gihk yahn]

look up eric creaseys stuff, he does a functional screening test , also his neanderthal no more series of articles at T-nation (i know its T nation but they are good) can help with poor posture, it gives ways to spot the problems and corrective exercises for things like rounded back etc

http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_...no_more_part_i

oh dear, someone has been ripping off Shirley Sahrman, PT and Vladamir Janda, MD...


it's all good stuff, pretty much the way the high-level manual therapy people are looking at things these days

[sanjuro_ronin]

anyway, that's my take on it (and SJ - we can play w/some of this stuff perhaps when we come up in Sept... )

You're a good man, I will kill you after we go over that stuff then.

[jdhowland]

... I believe that the truly "proper" posture is quadrupedal - which is what our spine was originally designed to work out of most if not all of the time

I think we are designed for climbing rocks and trees and hunching or kneeling for several hours a day looking for food on the ground and in stream beds. The pelvic basket does not have to support the guts all the time, and who would need "internal work" in these conditons? The viscera would be getting a workout all day long.

The quadrupedal motion in climbing is great conditioning for neuromuscular and fascial health. All the switching back and forth between opposite limbs and the cooperation between diagonally opposed limbs is something that I think is "natural" and beneficial.

Maybe I should do fewer standing drills and wrestle more...

[jdhowland]

[QUOTE=taai gihk yahn;1032391]...this is a typical "scapular setting" exercise used by many PT's...QUOTE]

Didn't know dat. Not surprised, either. Good responses to problems get rediscovered all the time. Those PT nerds know everything.

You're right, I should have written "lower trap." That's what I feel when doing the exercise. My guess is that it is emphasized in lama kyuhn for allowing quick transitons to "small door" attacks.

Taai Gihk Yahn, I like your description of "wringing" the tissues. I'm trying to develop an awareness (can't really call it a theory) of the interplay between the nervous system and connective tissues. So much has been said about "neuromuscular" activities that we tend to believe that it's the proper description of how our bodies move and not just a convenient handle for the whole complex.

I read something a few months ago about connective tissue in the brain being shown to transmit chemical information to other areas, bypassing the neurons. Can't find my source now, but I love that idea! Just as some cultures believe that we have a number of souls, psyches, persona, anima, levels of consciousness and prescriptive patterns or blueprints for each human being, I think our awareness of self-as-movement is one of those identities. We don't all have to be acrobats but if we don't give expression to that particular self while we can, well..we just aren't living right.

[taai gihk yahn]

You're a good man, I will kill you after we go over that stuff then.

I would expect nothing less...

although you will have to get permission from Scott - as it stands, he is the only one cleared for killing me at present;