Is Your Posture Good or Bad?

Is your posture good or bad?

Do you think of your posture as being good or bad?

Here at Pilates Plus, we don’t think of posture as being “good” or “bad”.

Posture is not being anything…it just is!

The word posture relates to the position that your body is in at any given time and isn’t something you can consciously control. Although we look at how aligned your posture is to the “ideal” position, the ultimate goal is not to have ideal posture but functional posture.

You know you have functional posture not so much from the “shape” of your body but by the movement capability you have and the amount of aches and pains you’re living with. 

We’re all born with a postural “profile” or postural “shape” which you might also see in other family members. Some postural profiles might have natural function and movement capability and require less effort to keep balanced, others require more effort to maintain balance.

Lifestyle can also contribute to posture losing it’s function.

Sitting at a desk for extended periods of time, excessive bending when doing manual labour, general lack of activity including strength and flexibility training can all contribute to postural issues which may potentially contribute to the development of an injury. 

There are also other factors that affect your posture.

An acute injury will immediately impact the balance in your body as it deals with the pain and movement limitations the injury has caused.

Chronic pain in the body will send posture in to “survival” mode as it attempts to keep the body upright and functioning in any way it can.

Activities that are repetitive like walking and running or single sided sports like golf or tennis

AND probably the biggest one of all…Gravity!

Now, as soon as you mention the word posture most people attempt to be more upright, with good reason.

Gravity is essentially squashing us all day long, pushing us to the ground. It’s the reason that we don’t fly off into space! When the astronauts go into space and escape gravity, they grow, sometimes up to 5cms!

And lastly the undeniable truth we all live with of “use it or lose it”. It’s not a given that posture degenerates as you get older, postural muscles are like any other muscles and will lose strength if they aren’t exercised.  

Postural imbalances may not present any problems for years. All of a sudden you develop a sore neck, knee, have a lower back injury which may have been either prevented or minimised by addressing postural issues sooner!!!

The good news is that it’s NEVER too late to start working on developing functional posture.

The pilates method of exercise is the ONLY exercise method designed to develop postural integrity and dynamic strength at the same time.

The foundations of pilates are based on postural strength and stability and if you’re a pilates beginner, you need to master these foundations first. And it’s very important to learn how to do this in the correct way.

Pilates is a very clever exercise method! We see our clients achieve incredible results every day, increasing functional posture and movement capability AS they get older.

“Our prime of life should be in the 70’s and old age should not come until we are almost 100” Joseph Pilates