Millions of people go to work every day not realizing the impact that their posture will have on their overall health. What about this guy below? Do you look like him? Most of you will laugh and think to yourself, “Not a chance". But in reality, if someone took a picture of you at a stressful time during your work day when you had to finish that project or meet some type of deadline, you may think you and him are a bit more comparable. Do you think he has neck pain? What about upper back pain or lower back pain? Maybe some numbness in his arms or legs? These symptoms are just a few things that can occur while working with poor posture. This is something that I can help you with.

Now lets be realistic, you probably don’t look like this all the time but what do you look like? Below, you will learn about these two conditions that are way more common in today’s society. Upper Cross Syndrome and Lower Cross Syndrome. Both of these conditions are very closely related to poor posture and can definitely impact you in the future if you do not address them.

Upper Cross Syndrome

Upper Cross Syndrome

Also referred to as proximal or shoulder girdle crossed syndrome. This condition is associated with poor posture positions. In this condition, you have a group of muscles that are in the long & locked positions and another group of muscles in the shortened positions. Both of these groups of muscles are in sub optimal length positions meaning they wont be able to function properly and perform their normal tasks. This increases their chances of poor performance and potential injury. This can cause normal pushing and pulling motions to become painful. Along with these muscle problems, they will also result with joint dysfunctions, potential pain sources and restricted fascial areas. To effectively improve this condition, you must treat and manage all areas that are effected and not just “stretch out the tight muscles” This is something that I can help you with!

Lower Cross Syndrome

Lower Cross Syndrome

Also referred to as distal or pelvic girdle crossed syndrome. This condition is also associated with poor posture positions. Similar to upper cross syndrome, you have a group of muscles that are in the long & locked positions and another group of muscles in the shortened positions. Both of these groups of muscles are in sub optimal length positions meaning they wont be able to function properly to perform the normal tasks they should be able to perform. Normal motions like walking, running and jumping can become painful. Along with these muscle issues, we will also see joint dysfunctions and more potential pain sources as well as restricted fascial areas. To effectively improve this condition, you must treat and manage all areas that are effected and not just “stretch out the tight muscles” This is something that I could help you with.

How is poor posture going to effect me over time? Great question!

We start the process off by you having tight and imbalanced muscle relationships like we see in the examples above. This can be a time when your begin to feel some pain in areas of your upper back, low back and base of your neck. You could feel tightness in your chest and tightness in the front of your hip. These tight muscles will result with movement patterns that become impaired and altered due to these muscles that are at sub-optimal lengths. These faulty movement patterns are learned because they are repeated over time. Your pain can begin to become more intense and felt more frequently at this point. These faulty movement patterns if practiced over periods of time can result with forces being put on parts of your joints that is excessive to what is normal. This excessive force through your joints can leads to early joint degeneration.

If you have further questions about this, please let me know!