When most people think about poor posture, they think about neck pain or lower back pain. They understand that slumping at their desk puts a strain on their neck. They know that sitting on the couch with their back rounded causes stresses in their lower spine. But posture is a chain reaction that goes throughout the body to cause discomfort in areas that seemingly have nothing to do with how someone sits or stands.
They may get headaches that never go away. They’re clenching their jaws. They wonder why they always have that spot between their shoulder blades that’s so uncomfortable. They may not realize that head forward position causes headaches, jaw tension originates from rounded shoulders, and postural collapse creates discomfort from compensatory behaviors developing elsewhere.
The Most Common Problem – Forward Head Position
Forward head position is one of the most common postural problems, thanks to cell phones and computer screens today. For every inch someone shifts their head forward away from its anatomical positioning over the shoulders, the head has an extra ten pounds. Thus, a head three inches forward positions thirty pounds to be placed upon neck and upper back musculature.
But forward head positioning doesn’t only stress the neck. It also creates tension headaches that feel like a band that squeezes around one’s head. Suboccipital muscles literally hold the head from falling further with chronic tightness to keep it up, which refers pain into the head; when this happens, many people just assume they’re getting stress headaches or migraines and don’t realize it’s all about posture.
Furthermore, the jaw is impacted. When the neck is further forward, the jaw isn’t appropriately situated where it needs to be positioned upon the cranial skeleton. The temporomandibular joint (TMJ) compensates for this adjustment and thus, TMJ can present with clicking, grinding and pain while chewing. People regularly spend thousands of dollars on dental appliances for TMJ when it’s truly a postural problem that needs correction.
That Awful Spot Between the Shoulder Blades
One of the most common places people feel pain from posture problems is right between the shoulder blades; it can be persistent and confusing. People assume those muscles are tight—the muscles that run between the spine and shoulder blades—however, those muscles are overstretched and exhausted from always trying to prevent the shoulders from moving further toward the front of the body.
Instead, the positioning of the shoulders has already taken place courtesy of pecs being tight and shortened from being placed in a bad position for so long. In rounded shoulders, the pectoralis minor pulls the shoulder blades down and forward. However, those muscles between the shoulder blades are overstretched and weakened because they’re always fighting that anterior pull. When people just treat that middle back pain without proper treatment of chest tightness and shoulder positioning, they’re set up for failure.
Therefore, it’s a frustrating cycle; people put their elbow in the small of their back to massage, stretch or apply heat to that spot; it may feel good momentarily but it doesn’t correct what’s happening because they fail to find the source, which is their postural alignment. The pain between the shoulder blades is a symptom; it’s not the source.
The Pelvic Connection
Posture problems can emerge from the pelvis and hips as well. When they are inappropriately positioned via pelvic tilt—especially anterior pelvic tilt—it creates a stronger curve in the low back because now the body automatically compensates with a greater curve up top and since it’s shifted from ideal positioning, now the neck has to extend further to keep the head on top.
This compensatory pattern creates an upper back stiffness and discomfort that can seem out of place—and has nothing to do with the pelvis. However, trying to fix the upper back without any relation to the pelvic position is like trying to stop bailing water from a boat without plugging up a hole. Until something is done about where it all started, all areas will continue to suffer.
This happens because prolonged sitting creates tight hip flexors, which lead to this anterior pelvic tilt. When someone sits for so long, they eliminate hip flexor length which ultimately tilts positioning while standing; thus, this problem flows up through the skeletal structure because nothing exists in isolation—everything is connected, despite what someone may believe.
Breathing Patterns
Chronic shallow breathing from poor posture creates additional problems. Collapsing one’s chest forward and rounded shoulders prevents diaphragmatic movement from getting where it needs to go. As such, people end up utilizing neck and shoulder muscles for shallow chest breaths instead of using them when they need to help out their diaphragm.
Using neck and shoulder muscles (which should be auxiliary muscles at best) creates continual tension in these areas. People regularly have tight upper trapezius and levator scapulae that seem constant in spasm; tension in these areas refer into heads—in another type of headache—or down into shoulder blades.
The fix comes with postural correction but also breathing retraining. By opening up the chest position, someone needs to actively engage their diaphragm again but since it’s been so compressed for so long, special efforts need to be made through conscious breathing attempts to retrain it; otherwise, people will just assume their bodies know what they’re doing after so long of shallow experiences.
Why Stretching Doesn’t Always Help
People who experience postural pain typically try to stretch those areas that hurt; they think that if their chest is tight, they should stretch it; if their neck is uncomfortable, they should stretch it. But in these instances of postural dysfunction—this is not always recommended.
In some cases, specific muscles are tight because they’re short; others are tight because they’ve overstretched/fatigued during a negative postural pattern development over time. Thus, stretching them only makes them worse instead of providing strength. Conversely—a tight chest (short) in a rounded shoulder situation needs stretching while stretched (and tired) upper back muscles need strength—and if they get opposite care—as happens often—they perpetuate an imbalance.
The most effective posture correction occurs when professionals assess postures appropriately to determine which group of muscles are truly short and need lengthening versus which are already long who need help finding equilibrium through strengthening. Their patterns are not obvious and therefore assessment helps because what’s sought-for tension relief may not be actually where attention needs to be put.
Breaking The Cycle
Realizing there’s an issue causing incessant discomfort is half the battle but once observed, correcting postural problems requires so much time because they’ve been adopted over months or even years—once compensation patterns have developed through dysfunction accumulating it’s rarely solved through one adjustment.
Change involves daily efforts toward ideal postures during regular behaviors, corrective exercises and often hands-on treatment through those limitations preventing individuals from finding themselves where they need to be daily all day long.
Awareness is key—most people fail to recognize how they position themselves throughout the course of a day; thus looking at one’s own posture while sitting at a computer, driving on line at a cash register or watching television—a full assessment takes note whether people’s heads are jutted forward, shoulders hunched or weight unevenly placed onto one hip.
There should also be corrective exercises for specific postural imbalances—for example—for someone who typically rounds their shoulders causes tightness in their upper back—it would necessitate strengthening upper back and neck extensors and stretching chest/hypoflexors—but individual twists exist best looked at after someone gets assessed as well.
Fortunately—most posture-related pain responds reliably well once corrections are properly made and sourced; however—the annoying part is operating symptomatically on painful segments without taking into consideration corrective means for underlying dysfunction present undercut positive timely relief into frustration efforts operating in vain instead.
Finding—and fixing—the source (postural imbalance) solves problems no one ever thought had anything to do with their position in life.