What you will read now will be a short article on how you can make your day to day life at the desk a little less achy and get you to a point you are looking after your body.
Those of you that have jobs whereby you are more active and on your feet, pay attention as to how to active your postural muscles. These tips will be of use to you as well.
The clients I see in my line of work both as a personal trainer and sports massage therapist, depending on there job generally come to me with the same/similar issues when it comes to there upper backs, lower spines, hips and their flexors.
The classic upper back symptom I hear "I'm always stretching my neck but the aching doesn't stop"
Take a moment to study the position and movement on your shoulders and ask these questions,
1. Do they appear pushed forward/rounded from your chest?
2. When I stretch my arms out wide can I feel a strong stretch in my chest?
3. When I lift my arms above my head can I feel a tightness in my shoulders (a), armpits (b) and if I look in a mirror doing this do my arms reach up really straight with my biceps touching my ears??
If you have answered any of those questions like this,
1. Yes
2. Yes (stronger at the point my chest and shoulder join)
3. (a) As I take my arm up I can feel a pulling half way along my bicep/discomfort deep in the shoulder/weakness at a certain point
(b) I can feel a pulling on the lower part of my armpit and this stops me reaching up as high as possible/tightness in my arm when I lift up
Your answers to these questions could indicate a deficiency in the mechanics of the shoulder joint and it's surrounding structures that are/could cause impingement issues. If these are prolonged you will be more susceptible to inflammation to the structures responsible for protection and movement of the shoulder.
How can you improve the position of your shoulders I hear your say to yourself!?
Firstly - stop stretching your neck from side to side and dropping your chin to your chest and also stop stretching the muscles of the upper back.
Reason being that if you have this rounded shoulder position, the muscles on the upper back and neck are already over stretched due to the forward position of your shoulders. What happens over time if not corrected is the musculature on the upper back become adaptively long due to the pulling force of the chest, anterior deltoids(Front of your shoulder), Lats, biceps and to a point the abdominal wall.
This then means that your ability to shorten the upper back muscles through retraction isn't able to occur leaving those muscles to stay too tight and giving you the symptoms of aching.
Stop stretching the upper back and neck if you have the posture I have just outlined - YOU ARE MAKING IT WORSE.
INSTEAD! - stretch the chest, front portion of your shoulders, biceps, abdominals and also the front portions of your neck muscles.
The result of this will lengthen the adaptively shortened muscles on the front of your body and then force the over tight and long muscles on the back to shorten and get into a more relaxed position.
To have successful long term results for your posture you have to be able to initiate and control both the retraction (pull) and protraction (push) of your shoulder girdle (think of the the area of your body from your nipples up to the top of your neck - front and back)
Can you squeeze your shoulder blades together? Can you sustain this all day?
When dealing with posture in my line of work it is vitally important that you get the individual moving correctly. Your body is designed to move in a certain way and your brain is able to activate the muscles to initiate correct movement patterns. Without this you won't be able to perform correctly and it can lead your to injury.
A quick movement pattern I get the ladies to remember is the following....
BOOBS UP! ...simple yet effective! (lads you can still do this movement!)
When you do this movement just make a gentle squeeze of the muscles in between your shoulder blades. You will notice when you do this that your shoulders will be pulled back into a better position, your stomach is longer and flatter and also the pressure through the muscles of the upper back decreases.To help up the BOOBS up position you are needing to activate the lower pelvic floor muscles.
Again I have a nice simple way of explaining this...are you ready!?
When you are having a wee, the muscles you tighten to stop yourself mid flow are those lower pelvic floor muscles!.....so! as your have just lifted your chest up, squeeze and tighten these muscles. This will have the knock on effect of holding your abdominals in place and making it easier to maintain this correct position.
Lifting in this way will also extend the individuals thoracic spine, which decreases the load that can be built up by incorrect posture.
For permanent change you are best off combining massage release therapies and strength work to train the upper postural muscles to stay in the correct positions, resulting in long term pain free posture of the upper body.
That's all for now.
Nick Collins
www.noregretsfitness.co.uk
nick-collins@hotmail.com
p.s contact me to find out more on strength training, rehabilitation and massage treatments.
Next tip to come will discuss the ideal position of the hips.
Here's a little visual preview.
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