Importance Of Posture and tackling tight muscles

Thomas Wells, founder and CEO of The Body Mechanic®, is a respected bodyworker and educator in Santa Rosa, California. https://thebodymechanic.com/ 

He has over 18 years of experience eliminating pain and improving function for all types of clients, from professional athletes to couch potatoes. He holds credentials from numerous alternative health and fitness institutions such as the National Academy of Sports Medicine and the Prague School of Rehabilitation.

He is a nationally-licensed and California-certified massage therapist and worked for many years as a personal trainer specializing in corrective exercise. Thomas teaches several therapeutic modalities to physicians, chiropractors, physical therapists, athletic trainers, yoga/Pilates instructors and of course fellow bodyworkers from around the world. In addition, he has also taught courses in Advanced Functional Anatomy and Integrated Muscle-Testing and Palpation.

The Importance of Posture

Sit up straight. Shoulders back. We’ve all heard it before, but why is it important? Posture isn’t just about looking better and more confident… it’s about our bodies working better. To better understand how this works, we have to know a little bit more about how muscles work.

Interlace your fingers and slide your fingers apart and together. Your fingers represent the protein filaments involved in muscle contraction and relaxation and this visual gives you a basic idea of how muscles move. Muscles are at their best, at their strongest, when there is not too little overlap (a stretched muscle) or too much overlap (a shortened muscle). They have an ideal length and an ideal tension at which they and the surrounding tissues function best.

In poor posture, we have chronically short and chronically lengthened muscles which alter the way our bodies work, increasing the stress to our soft tissues and to our joints. For every shortened muscle, there will be at least one lengthened muscle, though usually many. These shortened muscles are prone to over-activity and often not very strong. The lengthened muscles are typically weak and under-active. The problems don’t end there.

These weak or under-active muscles are unable to perform their designated functions effectively, so the body must compensate. In a phenomena known as synergistic dominance, the body selects muscles with similar or shared functions to compensate for the weakened muscles. They’re never as efficient at those particular functions as the primary muscles and often become strained or overused as a result.

All these altered muscle lengths, tensions and functions also alter the mechanics at the joints which these muscles affect. This can lead to increased wear and tear on our joints. The combined effect of all this dysfunction is altered muscle recruitment patterns, increased tissue stresses, and a predisposition to injury. So what do we do about it?

Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as sit up straight, shoulders back, chin up. Shortened, over-active muscles inhibit opposing muscles through a phenomena known as reciprocal inhibition. This means that when you attempt to pull those shoulders back, it will be difficult to do so using the proper muscles because the tight muscles which are holding your shoulders forward are inhibiting them. So what do you do? The process for correcting posture is a long one, but it can be done. It’s a three-step process. First, you have to stretch and/or release those shortened, overactive muscles to allow proper functioning of the inhibited muscles. Next, you need to target the lengthened and inhibited muscles for strengthening using specific exercises. These two steps give one the ability to maintain good posture, but that doesn’t mean we know how. In the final step, we must re-train our nervous systems to operate in ideal posture. This is where the whole sit up straight, shoulders back stuff comes into play. This is where it’s actually useful.

Course Creator and Chief Stretch Adviser to the StretchLab Flexologist Training Program

In 2017 Brad was recruited by StretchLab, a world leader in providing one-on-one assisted stretching services and small group stretch classes. Brad developed the stretching protocols and procedures that StretchLab uses daily. He also created the extensive 70+ hour Flexologist Training Program (FTP) that StretchLab uses internationally to train their Flexologists.

Extracts From  Interview Brad Did With Smashing Fifty Podcast

As we get older and our body begins to lose qualities like elastin that contribute to our suppleness and flexibility.

As our muscles tighten up and become shorter, that constriction and tightness pulls on our joints which leads to pain and discomfort. Stretching really helps to reverse that. It helps to lengthen the muscles out and creates a better range of motion around those joints. When there’s more mobility, around the joints and in the muscles, that helps to relieve any tightness and takes a lot of pressure off those joints. Extracts ended 

A stretching story By Brad walker (30 years of practical experience in the industry as an elite coach and sports medicine lecturer)

Once upon a time there was an eager, young athlete ready to take on the world. He trained hard, ate right, got lots of rest and did all the things a budding young athlete should do. His specialty was the 10km run and he was not bad either. His personal best was 32 minutes and 4 seconds. That is pretty good for a 17 year old kid. But he longed to break the 30 minute barrier, he had tried everything but nothing seemed to work.

His training program was well structured and very professional. He was disciplined and rarely wavered from his set training program. He incorporated long runs, tempo runs, interval training, and weight training in the gym, hill running, cross country running, deep water running and various other training methods to try and improve his personal best. He even brought a mountain bike to introduce cross training into his program. He always ate right, took extra vitamins and mineral to supplement his diet and made sure he drunk plenty of water. He made sure he was well rest and got the occasional massage to help his legs recover.

I met our budding young athlete at a local fun run where he had a good race and achieved a time most people would be happy with. Although it was close to his personal best, it was still nowhere near his goal of breaking 30 minutes. We got to talking and I could tell he was disheartened and frustrated. He explained to me that he tried everything and nothing he did seemed to improve his personal best. I asked if he would mind if I attended one of his training sessions and welcomed the idea of getting some fresh advice.

As it turned out, the next session that I could get to was an interval session at the local 400 meter track. As I arrived he was just finishing his warm up with a few run-throughs. For this session he was going to do 8, 400 meter intervals with plenty of rest in between each one. As soon as he started the first interval I could tell what was wrong. His hamstrings and calf muscles were so tight they restricted the normal range of movement of his legs to extent that they shortened his stride length. For a tall guy with long legs his stride length was atrociously short.

After he finished his cool-down, I asked him if he ever did any stretching. He replied quite honestly by saying he did none at all. Just to be sure we did a few flexibility tests for his back, hamstrings and calves. From these it was quite obvious that his flexibility was the major limiting factor in achieving this goal.

I went to explain how his lack of flexibility was contributing to a shortened stride length, which in turn was making it difficult to improve his personal best time. Armed with this new bit of hope he eagerly wanted advice on how to incorporate stretching into his training program.

We sat down together and reviewed his training program for the next two weeks. We decided not to make any changes to the program itself, but simply add a general stretching workout to each session. The only advice I gave him was to add 10 minutes of stretching before each session and 15 minutes of stretching after each session and at least 30 minutes of stretching each night.

The results did not happen straight away, but within two weeks his general flexibility improved considerably. We then incorporated a number of specific stretches to further increase the flexibility of his back, hamstrings and calves.

The improvements over the next couple of months were remarkable. Not only did his times improve but his running style and technique also improved considerably.

The last time I spoke with our budding young athlete he still had not achieved his 30 minute goal, but his 400 meter time had dropped to less than 60 seconds. His 5km personal best was right on 15 minutes and his 10km personal best was now just under 31 minutes. I am positive it is only a matter of time before he achieves his goal of 30 minutes for 10km.

Remember that except for adding stretching to his program, nothing else has changed. The results were remarkable. Do not make the mistake of thinking that some as simple as stretching won’t be effective. Stretching is a vital and just as important as other parts of your health and fitness.