Sit up/stand up straight... who doesn't conjure up an image of their mother, grandmother or piano teacher when they hear this sentence? Only problem is, the spine not straight!
The spine has curves, natural curves. It should not be straight but it should also not be too curved either. Wow, that gets confusing. How do you find that happy medium?
If you look at the spinal column, you will see every vertebrae has a thick blocky portion and smaller bones projecting toward the back. It makes sense that your body weight should be held through the big blocks, right?! In the low back, where the vertebrae are the largest is a good place to get more acquainted with your spine. Touch the tips of your spine in your low back. Feel those stegosaurus bumps? Good! Now imagine how deep the blocky section is... almost a fingers length into your torso! That's pretty deep!
So, the word spine has become synonymous with the word back, but as you can now imagine, it's not in your back, it is in your middle. Just that thought alone might be enough to change how you stack your spine.
Now imagine you are standing on the bottom step of a staircase. You are going to jump off that bottom step and land on both feet. How will you position yourself to land? I'll bet you won't choose to stand up straight! That would hurt! Instinctively you will adjust to a more stacked, shock-absorbing position which is more in line with your anatomy and true posture position.
Next time you are checking your posture, try thinking "Stand up stacked!"
~Shannon Wade, LPTA
The spine has curves, natural curves. It should not be straight but it should also not be too curved either. Wow, that gets confusing. How do you find that happy medium?
If you look at the spinal column, you will see every vertebrae has a thick blocky portion and smaller bones projecting toward the back. It makes sense that your body weight should be held through the big blocks, right?! In the low back, where the vertebrae are the largest is a good place to get more acquainted with your spine. Touch the tips of your spine in your low back. Feel those stegosaurus bumps? Good! Now imagine how deep the blocky section is... almost a fingers length into your torso! That's pretty deep!
So, the word spine has become synonymous with the word back, but as you can now imagine, it's not in your back, it is in your middle. Just that thought alone might be enough to change how you stack your spine.
Now imagine you are standing on the bottom step of a staircase. You are going to jump off that bottom step and land on both feet. How will you position yourself to land? I'll bet you won't choose to stand up straight! That would hurt! Instinctively you will adjust to a more stacked, shock-absorbing position which is more in line with your anatomy and true posture position.
Next time you are checking your posture, try thinking "Stand up stacked!"
~Shannon Wade, LPTA
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