Most people have heard as children and adults, from parents, P.E. teachers and athletic trainers, to stand up straight to avoid problematic backs and necks. That slumping is not good for your health and it just doesn’t look good. There is wisdom in these expressions of observation about form and posture, but often how the advice was given was not helpful to effecting a change.
Most of the advice given for improving posture is taken from a military model that asks for shoulders pulled back, chest up and abdomen pulled in tight. As many of us have found out, we cannot maintain a holding pattern that requires us to engage and reposition ourselves through muscular contraction alone for long periods of time.
Good posture comes from balancing and aligning the skeletal structure.
It is a repositioning the body will naturally make when the fascial-net pattern formations (connective tissue influence) is released. When the influence of excessive tension within the many layers of connective tissue is freed, the wisdom of the body is to find balance and optimal posture. There is no need for forcing muscular contractions to reposition parts of the skeletal structure, when realignment takes place through integrated shifts of the entire human body.
Why is optimal posture important for good health?
When the human structure is in balance there is less expenditure of energy to be upright. The body becomes efficient in movement with increases to athletic performance, flexibility and comfort. Poor posture can be a direct cause for chronic muscular and skeletal pain and limitation. The type of pain and limitation, which over time, may result in wear patterns in joints and causing soft tissue inflammatory processes. These conditions will later require serious medical interventions to ameliorate and manage to limit further degeneration.
Rolfing’s hands-on work and functional education will provide improvement in posture as well as increases in flexibility and coordination. The Rolfing process will help relieve chronic muscular pain and optimize joint alignment and articulation. With these changes comes a sense of well being, bodily comfort and greater vitality.