Okay, so that may not be exactly how that quote goes. But it's more relevant to my post that way, so just go with it. After the last few months of teaching I've come to the troubling conclusion that most people really have no idea how torqued up their bodies really are. Now this time I'm not talking about nutrition, or aversion to exercise, or the strange eagerness for a large bench press (although that will make an appearance later on). In this particular case in speaking of the unfortunate lack of attention to proper posture and joint mobility.
Now I'd rather not talk at length about proper posture, as most people are pretty tired of hearing about it. Instead I'd rather talk about the havoc it creates in and around the joints of your body, because it seems that same majority of people has no idea the pain and suffering they may be inflicting on themselves. Overall, what I'm talking about is muscle balance, or more importantly muscle IMbalance around your joints. To keep this simple (and in many cases is very much Not simple) imagine that every joint in your body has one muscle on each side of it, and that these two muscles are designed to work together to produce a balance of forces across that joint to both create and stabilize movement. The easiest joints to envision in this fashion are his type joints like your elbows and knees. The biceps and triceps muscle work together to ensure that Flexion and Extension of your elbow happen safely, smoothly, and in a very stable way. However, if one of those muscles becomes overly tight then an imbalance can occur that could threaten to put more force on one side of the joint. On the one hand this makes the partner muscle have to work harder in order to move the joint to its side. If this was the only consequence that might not be so bad. However, in order to keep stress and friction in that joint to a minimum your brain many times will actually inhibit that actions of that partner muscle, making it weaker, slower, and less effective in both moving and stabilizing that joint. That's where you can run into issues.
So you may be saying to yourself "Who cares if my elbows are imbalanced?" Perhaps nobody, but the real problems are in those more complex joints, specifically the Hips and Shoulder Girdle. Create imbalances there and you're on the road to Pain, Injury, and possible Disfigurement. And make no mistake, I'm not shitting you in any sense of the word. Muscle imbalances in these two regions lead to more lower back pain, herniated discs, knee ligament sprains and tears, broken hips, rotator cuff sprains and tears, shoulder dislocations, postural deformities, and overall flexibility limitations than any other cause or malady in the history of man. And during the last century of two those types of issues have taken what can only be described as an Exponential rise. Why the last two centuries you ask? What kind of changes could possibly have led to this population of broken down souls weeping in their own sorrows of weakness and disfunction?! (Okay sorry, that one got away from me) To be honest one could almost entirely blame this downfall on our ever increasing opportunity to Sit Down. Yup. Just sitting. Weird right? Allow me to explain.
The human body has a truly amazing ability to adapt and respond to the world around it. The ability is what allows us to run faster, jump higher, and become ever bigger and stronger. We in the Fitness Industry have named this ability Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demand, or the SAID principle. Basically speaking your body will respond to any stresses placed on it. And this ability can be used for both good and evil. Every human body on planet earth is designed to function and move in a certain standard way. And these movements are typically meant to move back and forth from what we call Anatomical Position. Stand Up straight with your toes pointed forward, hands at your sides, palms forward, and you're roughly in anatomical position. From here your joints are all in balance, with the right amount of tension and force necessary to safely move in any direction and speed you wish.
Now if you spent most of your time in this position, as say or primitive ancestors did, you'd be good to go for the most part. But think about an average day for most people. Where are they? Running around the Urban Serengeti? Nah, chances are they're sitting in a nice comfy office chair somewhere sending emails and filling out TPS reports, only to spend another hour driving home to spend a few more hours on the couch watching TV. So we're lazy. That's my point right? Not this time. Remember how I said your body adapts to how it's stressed? If your body spends the majority of its time in a seated position with a round spine, hunched shoulders, and arms resting out in front of itself, guess what; it's going to adapt to be more functional in that position. What's that mean? In order to produce normal forces around your joints, some of your muscles are going to shorten themselves, and their partners are going to lengthen themselves. Specifically, your calves, hamstrings, inner thighs, hip flexors, pecs, biceps, shoulder internal rotators, lats, upper traps, and neck muscles are now in a much shorter position. So what Is my point? From this new position you've adapted to, stand up. Two things will happen. First off, all those muscles I mentioned are now being stretched out, and are likely unhappy about it. They're going to try to keep their shortened positions, meaning horrible ankle positioning, inwardly turned knees, a rotated pelvis, hyper-extended lower back, rounded upper back and shoulders, and a head that's pulled forward like a giant plucked rooster. The second issue is that with all these muscles on the body being stretched and producing a lot of extra force, their partners on the back side of the body are now being inhibited from properly activating, just like our elbow example from above. Still not seeing an issue? Now almost all of the muscles on the front of the body are short and tight, and all the muscles on the back of the body are long and weaker/slower. The big issue here is that it's the muscles on the Back of your body that are needed for this like walking, running, jumping, pulling, moving side to side, decelerating your body from jumps, steps, and those side to side movements, and generating pretty much any power, speed or explosiveness you may need to, let's say, move out of the path of a runaway bus. Problem? Yeah, you could say that.
In addition to your new complete lack of ability to move like anything other than a Rollie Pollie, you've got one more problem: Stabilization. Those now weakened muscles on the back of your body that are supposed to work with the now shortened and pissed off muscles on the front of the body? They also now lack the ability to provide the proper stability of those same joints during movements. Lack of stability in the ankle/knee/hip? Sprains, tears, falls that cause broken bones. Lower spine? Herniated discs, muscle strains/tears, chronic pain. Upper Spine/Shoulder Girdle? Complete lack of flexibility, muscle strains/tears, dislocations, chronic pain.
At this point I'm hoping you're picking up what I'm putting down about how devastating a little imbalance can be, and how our favorite office chair may be the biggest Wolf in Sheep's clothing EVER! For now I'm going to leave you thinking about how you spend the average day, and the unseen hell it may be causing you. In my next post I'll get into how to reverse some of these issues, and to be honest it's fairly simple and straightforward. In the meantime, if you simply can't wait, talk to your Strength&Conditioning Coach about improving your postural distortions and muscular imbalances. And as always, if they give you a funny look like you just asked them for a half dozen Gordita Supremes... in Russian, then find yourself a new Coach!!
Now Friends, Go Forth, and be limber!!
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