Why is posture so important and crucial for ALL health?
Dennis Clifford
?? | @bcmbb @albaberlin @nbagleague All Star ?? | Hoop PAIN FREE ??| Unlimited Legs through CLEAN Movement??
When your body is aligned properly, it can naturally use more muscles to support itself, making it stronger, more efficient, and more resilient.?
Form follows function, right? So we can all agree on the fact that we evolved to perform certain movements and our survival depended on our ability to perform fundamental tasks…right???
In my opinion, the most important tasks are as follows:
If we can agree that these things are fundamental to our growth and evolution, we should also be able to agree that our alignment (the way our bodies are designed) must have a certain method to its madness.??
So, why is posture important?
Breath: Good posture leads to better breathing, allowing for full and even diaphragm activation, which helps pressurize the deep core muscles and activate the entire muscular chain. Poor posture, like excessive arching or rounding of the spine, can disrupt breathing and affect the muscles involved.
Stress (Pain): Chronic stress of all kinds - social emotional stress, hormonal imbalance, lack of sleep, etc. - negatively impact the body, which leads to breakdown and dysfunction. However, maintaining good posture helps the body cope with stress by stimulating blood circulation, hormonal balance, physical & mental stress distribution, and more.
Digestion: Proper posture supports efficient digestion, as the digestive tract functions optimally when the body is aligned correctly.
Body Fat:? Body fat increase is often a sign of structural and physiological inefficiency. Instead of relying on energy supplements, addressing the root cause of fatigue, often poor posture, is more effective.?
Daily Functionality: Good posture positively influences the nervous system, helping regulate hormones, energy levels, and even sexual performance. Optimal alignment means optimal muscle function, stress response, and digestion.??
The Root Cause of Modern Day Dysfunction
Form Follows Function, People!! ?So let’s look at how our function has changed.
Over the past 200 years, daily human movement and ergonomics have undergone significant changes. In the 19th century, the majority of people engaged in physically demanding activities like agriculture and manual labor. Movement patterns were diverse to adapt to a range of physical tasks.
Societal shifts have introduced a more sedentary style of work, with assembly lines, office structures, and seated commutes. Technology has further accelerated this change, leading to increased sedentary behavior as people now spend more time sitting at desks, using computers and smartphones. In short: less standing and walking with prolonged periods of sitting.?
On top of all that, we are in this weird Fitness Revolution. We sit around all day and then expect ‘peak performance’ from our bodies for 1-2 hours in sporadic intervals. We have an obsession in the fitness world with optimizing our bodies, which I don’t disagree with, but stacked with the rest of our habits, can create a dangerous equation.
So what happens to our body when we sit around all day?
First, it is unequivocally proven that stress helps shape our body.? Stress shaping our body used to mean helping us walk, run and fight better (I like using ‘fight’ to mean myriad movements, because of the wide range of physical tasks we evolved to do - perhaps ‘work’ may be a better term. But I’ll use ‘fight’ for now).? Now, stress shaping our body means shaping it to the chair, desk, and phone-holding posture.?
The Shape of Our Bodies
Bad posture usually starts when the hips shift forward and the pelvis rotates forward, mainly because the hip flexor muscles are too tight, almost always from sitting. This tightness causes the pelvis to tilt, making the lower back arch more (tight lower back) and the muscles in the lower abdomen and buttocks to stretch. This weakens the gluteal muscles, lower abs, and core stabilizers.
When the glutes and core muscles are not working properly, other muscles step in to help out, leading to a condition called synergistic dominance. For example, the gluteal muscles start working in a way they shouldn't, and the upper/mid abs take over for the lower abs in supporting the core. This shift in muscle activity can also affect the spine, causing it to flex in the upper back, leading to a rounded posture. This limits the diaphragm and intra-abdominal pressure with each breath, causing a laundry list of other problems in our holistic health (breath, digestion, hormone balance, EVERYTHING!!)
This poor posture can cause a chain reaction, affecting the shoulders, scapula, and neck. The shoulders and scapula can move forward, shortening certain muscles and lengthening others. The neck may also be affected, becoming protracted and flexed. All these changes in muscle activity and alignment can make the body less stable and movements less coordinated.
Now, how do you think that makes your legs feel? You know, those things that connect you to the ground and are heavily involved with every single movement.? You know, those things you want to be working at a World-Class level when you go deadlift for PR once a week.??
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You think a couple weird warmup exercises you saw on Instagram are going to help??
Heck no.? So how do we fix all this stuff??
Note:? We need to move more, yes.? But we also need to agree that at this point, all movement is not good movement; some movement is actually creating more dysfunction, especially the dumb stuff you see a lot of people do in the gym today. Some movements actually make your body less efficient, leading to more pain and injury.??
Thus, I give you the DCLIFF Training Rehab Process:? A Proven Way of Redesigning Your Body For Pain-Free Athleticism.
The Process
Phase 1: Release and relieve your body of ‘tension’.? We cannot add muscle or correct your posture if your body has traffic jams all over. So, using the lacrosse ball and other myofascial release techniques, we will use these 2 weeks to get your body feeling ‘fluid’ again.
It is very important that you CHILL and let these adaptations take place!??
Phase 1 is getting your body and mind to feel good and relax - only then can we solve the issues!
Phase 2: Replace Tension.
When you calm the nervous system and loosen up some of the fascia, you must replace that tension and put it in the correct places! If we don’t, our body will compensate the way it always does, and we will return to square 1 as soon as we start moving and/or training.
Let’s recalibrate your posture to ensure good regenerative mechanics!
Healthy breathing mechanics and posture create an environment for REgeneration. Bad breathing mechanics and posture create an environment for DEgeneration.
As long as we are regenerating, we can live a healthy, resilient life with optimal performance!
Phase 3: By now we should be at 80-90% capacity (while still feeling better than we have felt in a while!!). We use this last phase to increase the power, explosiveness, and cardio capacity that you will need to fully return to playing at your highest level. We want to increase these things WHILE STAYING HEALTHY, STRONG AND RESILIENT. Our goal here is to get faster, stronger and more powerful while we keep the principles that we have learned throughout the program.
As you can see, there are aspects of every training program - massage techniques, warmup techniques, workouts, tissue strengthening, movement, etc... What people, trainers and athletes, have failed to do (in my humble experience), is look at the big picture and create a system that progressively takes you from chronic pain to ‘court-ready’ in as little time as possible, without skipping vital steps.
Conclusion
Posture is about building our body’s foundation, like you would build the foundation of a building.? You do not want to skip it!
And I will end with this - your body is a system!? Everything is connected, and nothing works in isolation.? That is why your posture, breath, strength, circulation, nutrition, sleep and mental wellness all work together to create the mind and body that you have right now.? Addressing one of these topics means you address them all!?
And that is what Pain-Free Athleticism is all about.