What is Posture Alignment Therapy?

To examine what Posture Alignment Therapy is, one must first ask the question, "What is posture"?

Posture is the position in which you hold your body upright against gravity while standing, sitting or lying down. Good posture involves training your body to stand, walk, sit and lie in positions where the least strain is placed on supporting muscles and ligaments during movement or weight-bearing activities.

In order for your body to be pain free while doing the things you need and love to do (caring for children/grand-children, running, golfing, gardening, cleaning the home), your body must adhere to laws of physical health.  In particular, your body must be able to vertically load, balance side-to-side, and maintain good posture.

Most of us know good posture when we see it, and we are inspired by how free and strong it makes a person look. There are so many reasons to attend to our posture, so let's take a look at the benefits.

What are the benefits of good posture?
  • allows us to move efficiently
  • improves muscle function
  • increases range of motion
  • takes pressure off of compressed organs
  • improves circulation
  • creates a trimmer appearance
  • radiates an attitude of confidence
  • optimal organ and muscle function for maximum energy, endurance, and vigor
  • optimal biomechanics for the best possible muscle performance
  • neck, shoulders, and upper back that are not painful or fatigued at the end of the day or at the end of a long drive
  • greater concentration and mental ability 
  • infrequent upper and lower back problems
  • flatter and stronger stomach--in fact, without proper posture you can never achieve the flattest stomach and smallest waist possible
  • more respect-producing, confident, competent, vigorous, youthful appearance
What does posture have to do with living an active and pain free life?

We begin my understanding first what good posture is and then examining how your body works

Here are 5 Key Pointers to How Your Body Works as related to Posture

1.  Your body works as a unit
2.  Your posture is a picture of your function, dysfunction, and compensation
3.  Good posture is the ability to maintain structural integrity of the joints regardless of the position
4.  Form follows function - your bones do what your muscles tell them to do; your posture is determined by your muscle memory
5.  Your body is a stimulus - response system


Ask Yourself the following questions

1. Where is your pain?
2. Rate your pain on a scale of 0 to 10 (Zero being pain free and 10 being debilitating).



3. Write down (very specifically) how this pain impacts your life.
4. What are your current physical limitations?
5. What would you like to be able to do that you cannot do now?

How Fast Can You Impact Your Pain?  Instantly!   But, 

To get your Pain to go and stay away you must be willing to ...

1.  Change your mind
2.  Change your habits
3.  Change your actions

Change Your Mind?
In order to affect your Pain, we have to start changing how we think about pain.  That means going from "what's wrong with me" to "what is my body trying to tell me?"

The old paradigm of thought:  Traditional medicine, MRI's, x-rays, etc. are looking for what's wrong, so chasing the symptom (chasing the pain).

The new paradigm of thought:  Why is the pain in that specific area and focusing our attention on connecting the pain to postural dysfunction.

Change Your Habits and Change Your Actions?
When adopting posture alignment therapy to address your pain, you are implementing specific corrective exercises personalized to your postural imbalances

This means you must consistently implement new stimulus (movement and action) to your body on a daily basis to change your muscle memory.

Posture Alignment Therapy in the Egoscue® Method is a process of corrective stretches and exercises designed specifically for each client to address postural and muscular deviations away from our anatomical blue-print design.

These simple yet profound corrective exercises address the underlying root cause of your pain rather than the symptoms that you present with.  

This process strengthens specific muscles and brings the body back to its proper alignment and functioning the way it was designed—pain free.  When practiced on a regular basis posture alignment therapy provides long term restoration to your overall physical health in mind, body and spirit.

The body is a unit and must be treated as such!  



What is the Egoscue Method?
The Egoscue® Method is a therapy that uses a series of individually tailored exercises to make specific demands on the body to correct postural misalignment. It incorporates gentle stretches and corrective exercises to reposition, strengthen and stretch the body. The aim of the Egoscue® Method is therefore to eliminate the imbalances/deviations of the body and thereby restore muscular balance and skeletal alignment.

Egoscue Method Therapy is founded on the Three R's.  They are:
  1. Rediscover the body’s design
  2. Restore Function
  3. Return to Health
How?
The Egoscue® Method works on the basis that most people’s body has a fundamental design characteristic, or "blue-print design".  This can be seen in the following pictures that outlines the relationship of the load bearing joints - the shoulders, hips, knees and ankles. You will notice that the ankles, knees, hips and shoulders are designed to line up vertically and horizontally at 90 degree angles.

Blue-Print Design or Proper posture :
  • Keeps bones and joints in the correct alignment so that muscles are being used properly
  • Helps decrease the abnormal wearing of joint surfaces that could result in arthritis
  • Decreases the stress on the ligaments holding the joints of the spine together
  • Prevents the spine from becoming fixed in abnormal positions
  • Prevents fatigue because muscles are being used more efficiently, allowing the body to use less energy
  • Prevents strain or overuse problems
  • Prevents backache and muscular pain
  • Contributes to a good appearance
Blue-Pint Posture Front View            Blue-Print Posture Side-View
     


According to the Egoscue® Method , any deviation from this fundamental design posture will lead to dysfunction, compensation and eventually pain in the body.

What this means in practice is any differences between the left and right side of the body, front and back of the body or any combination of imbalances will lead to some form of dysfunction. Common postural changes can include elevated hip or shoulder, rotation of trunk or hip, “knock” knees or bow legs and can occur as a result of lifestyle factors and injury.

The Egoscue Method has had enormous success in helping people overcome their physical ailments. It is a technique that is attractive to many people because it is a common sense approach to the human body. The individual can see and feel the physical changes that take place as a result of their efforts. Associated with that is an increased feeling of confidence that accompanies the improved health that he or she is responsible for. A major concern of health care today is that of reduced costs and prevention. Therapy requires no special equipment or dependency on anyone other than you. Because we do not treat the symptom, but instead look to restore optimum function to the body, the implications toward prevention are obvious and very serious.


Let's examine the difference between a body that is in balance in a vertical and horizontal plane, versus one that is not.  

Better known as good versus poor posture.

 Good posture  
 
 
Examples of poor posture

At Pain Free Posture MN the process of Posture Alignment Therapy begins with the following 9 Steps:

1.  Identify your unique postural imbalances

2.  Understand how function, dysfunction and compensation are tied together and how they cause pain.

3.  Learn exactly what needs to change in your daily thought, habit and action for you to become pain free.

4.  Have a personalized menu of corrective exercises created for you to decrease compensation movements and restore correct movement and joint function.

5.  Learn these specific corrective exercises with your Posture Alignment Specialist recommended affiliate therapist (Deb Preachuk) and them implement them on your own at home on a daily basis.

6.  Follow-up appointments to evaluate progress and change stimulus as your neuromuscular coordination improves and your body adapts and heals.

7.  As the pain continues to diminish and go away begin to address the root dysfunction underlying your compensation movements

8.  Implement full body range of motion exercises to restore full function to all your joints

9.  Learn to recognize new dysfunctions and compensations when they first appear and how to intervene before pain sets in.  You are now acting proactively and fully participating in preventative health care management!


Posture Alignment Therapy is based on the premise that the human body has a fundamental blueprint design.

This design is a neutral posture of form and function which includes anatomical, physiological and biomechanical principles of motion. When the body deviates from this blueprint design for any reason (past trauma, injury, pregnancy, weight gain/loss, activity or lack of) muscular compensation begins to occur. If this compensation (muscles, bones and joints performing work they are not designed to do) continues, a deviation of body's blueprint of form and function occurs. This is the framework of the symptomatic pain cycle.


Baby Olivia loves to do her Mom's exercises...

Postural deviation at one or more weight bearing load joints can cause muscle, bone and joint compensation both directly at the site, and throughout the entire body. Normal form and function becomes impaired resulting in undue stress and demand.

Work and weightload is transferred to other parts of the body ill-equipped and not designed to do that job. Over time, this dysfunction leads to pre-mature wear and tear on the muscular and skeletal systems.

Thus the cycle of pain and limited mobility begins. When we hurt we move less or change how we move. The deep postural support muscles become latent and atrophy, and the muscles doing all the compensating get stronger and tighter (pulling us out of sid-to-side and front-to-back balance). Now we have a dysfunctional muscular and skeletal system deprived of stimulus and motion. We hurt more so we do less. Pain sets in and the cycle continues.

At Pain Free Posture MN, we evaluate a client's symptoms in reference to the blueprint of a neutral and pain free posture. Each client's posture and physical function are evaluated and then cross referenced to pain symptoms. From that an analysis, an individualized exercise and stretching program is developed to address the specific postural disparities and dysfunctions within the client.

A posture alignment program is designed to restore normal and pain free function to the client's body. The exercises and stretches are carefully selected to address each client's symmetry, balance and vertical load of the spine and load bearing joints designed to restore the correct amount of muscle balance and tension from side-to-side and front-to-back all under neutral postural alignment which vertically aligns all eight of the major load bearing joints.

Posture Alignment therapy can successfully address and eliminate pain associated with:

  • postural/idiopathic scoliosis
  • back pain - including sciatica and herniated discs
  • shoulder pain - including rotator cuff, frozen shoulder syndrom
  • head and neck pain - including tmj, frequent and recurring migraines and headaches
  • knee pain including patellar femoral syndrome
  • hip and groin pain
  • foot and ankle pain including bunions, hammer toes, plantar fascia and spurs
  • fibromyalgia
  • chronic fatigue syndrome
  • thoracic outlet syndrome
  • chronic joint dislocations
  • chronic sports injuries
  • vertigo and balance problems
  • sinus problems
  • numbness and/or cold in the extremeties
  • and many more

When the body is restored to its original blueprint design (neutral anatomical position), the shoulders, hips, knees and ankles are directly aligned with one another, with the head and spine centered and the three natural S-shaped curves present within the spine.

This anatomical neutral postural position is the most efficient and shock absorbing position for the body to function with. The body weight is evenly distributed throughout the spine and load bearing joints. This allows the body to easily and efficiently handle impact from the activities of daily living to imposed demands such as athletics.

Restoring normal functional movement to the body is the key to eliminating pain and restoring health. Motion stimulates all of the body's systems (muscular, skeletal, nervous, circulatory, lymphatic and digestive). Motion is a signal to the body to restore, re-charge and renew itself from the inside out. By re-training your body to hold it's blueprint design and restoring normal weight bearing joint function you can give your body the opportunity to heal itself and get rid of pain naturally, without manipulation, medication, or surgery.


"The site of the pain is rarely the site of the problem."

~ Pete Egoscue