Standing ergonomics

It’s time to stand up, the right way

I often think of dentistry, and how dentist’s have done a great job of educating the public on how to take better preventative care of their oral hygiene; by using floss, brushing after every meal, mouth wash, avoiding certain foods and beverages, and cleaning check ups every 6 months. This idea of proactive preventative maintenance is often called wellness care, wellness lifestyle, or a healthy lifestyle. The idea is to be proactive, not just against the signs of aging, but to feel healthier, have a higher quality of life, and to avoid, or prevent, disease, by not waiting to have a problem and being reactive.    This idea of wellness care, in the long run, will not only save money, but lives, pain, and disabilities.  But for some reason, the public has not been educated on how to take care of their body, through proper diet, stretching, exercise, ergonomics, and routine check ups.  This is in part by the constant changing information, and misinformation, coming from the medical profession itself; I am sure if we had 5 posture and ergonomic specialists read this blog they all will have something to add or disagree with, but the take home message is all the same, perfection does not exist, and these little differences are just that, little.  After reading this blog, I want you the reader, to know how to better take care of yourself.  This brings me to the topic of the proper standing posture. 

It sounds simple enough, but have you ever really given it much thought?  Have you ever asked a health care professional how to improve on your standing posture?  Have you ever practiced good standing posture?  Do you expect to be good at something without practice or professional input? Like most of our activities, when as young child, our parents are just happy to have us standing.  The typical American parents will not start their young children off with proper ergonomic standing position, thusly we will often develop bad habits, which through the years get deeply embedded into our unconscious memory and therefore is very difficult to correct.  These poor standing habits will contribute to many different ailments including: tension headaches, difficulty breathing, tight muscles, overuse syndromes such as degenerative arthritis, fatigue, decreased sports performance, more likely to get injured, and decreased healing capacity after an injury.  Posture is a combination of your structure, or bones and joints, your soft tissues, meaning you muscles, ligaments, tendons, cartilage, and discs, and your brain’s input into how to appropriately use your structure and soft tissues.  This is where most of our posture, and ergonomic, problems can arise.  Maybe someone has a structural issue, maybe one leg is anatomically shorter than the other, or maybe someone has a hamstring that is tighter than the other, or their core is stronger on one side versus the other.  But more often than not, it is our brain and our lack of effort that has the greatest contribution to poor posture.

Basic tips for good standing posture

• Visualize yourself from the front.  Your eyes, ears, shoulders, and hips should be level.  Try to not be standing while weight bearing one leg more than the other, and your feet should be pointing forward about shoulder width apart.
• Visualize yourself from the side.  Your head should be in a neutral position, with your ears inline with your shoulders, hips, and knees.  Your head should be held high.  Your shoulders should be relaxed/down and back so that your shoulders are not rounded foreword, and your chest should be out.  Your pelvis should be near level, or in neutral, and your knees should be straight but not locked position.  Lower cross syndrome can play a part in your body’s side profile.  Lower cross syndrome is when we have anterior pelvic tilt as a result of tight Iliopsoas, piriformis, Rectus femoris, TFL, hip adductor group, erector spinae, gastrocnemius, and soleus muscles and weak gluteus maximus, gluteus medius, hamstrings, oblique, and retus abdominis muscles.  These imbalances would have to be corrected for long term postural corrections.
• Avoid standing in the same position for too long, move around, squat down, use a stool or box (in the kitchen open a cabinet and rest your foot inside) and rest a foot on it for a period of time then switch to the other foot.
• Wear good, supportive, comfortable, shoes and replace shoes often.  This is extremely difficult with woman’s dress shoes, so if you must wear them, wear walking shoes and when you get where you are going switch to the heels.
• Make sure your work station is an appropriate height for you that you are not bent over, for example do not fold laundry on your bed find a counter that is higher.
• A strong core that has endurance is very important; include bridge type exercises in your routine. Pilates is often a good source for these types of exercises. I often hear patients state that it is not the first hour of standing that hurts it is the 2^nd, 3^rd, or 4^th.  This is often due to a lack of endurance in postural muscles.  When you are standing with bad posture for a long time, your muscles will tire and relax.  Keep in mind that our body is more efficient at standing when it is in a proper standing position.  This is due to the fact that while in proper standing posture our structure will support our body weight, and when we are standing in poor posture our muscles will have to support our body weight.
• Stretch your chest muscles.
• Strengthen your upper back with rowing type exercises.
• Work on your ability to balance.
• Have someone take a candid picture of you so you can see what your posture is normally.

One important tip, that is often not mentioned, is the use of custom foot stabilizers to help with standing posture.  First off, understand that our body is a kinetic chain, in which we are all connected; for example our ankle can have an effect on our knee, then our knee on our hip, our hip on our pelvis, our pelvis on our back.  Some experts estimated that nearly 70% of Americans have fallen arches in their feet and would benefit from foot stabilizers, or orthotics.  Foot Pronation is a common word that comes up with this topic.  Foot Pronation describes a rotation downward and inward by the foot which can result in a decrease in arch height.  A falling arch, and/or Pronation, will lead to inward rotation of the knee and hip; thusly disrupting standing posture and the optimal position for these joints to function, which some experts suggest can lead to early degeneration of these joints.  By correcting structural problems with the feet, we can reduce abnormal biomechanics, forces, and stress to the kinetic chain and improve posture.

Good posture makes you look younger, more attractive, and slimmer.  Having good posture ensures your body is aligned for maximum efficiency and function, when you are not in good posture your body must work harder because it can not work the way it was designed to.  The bottom line is we all need to live a wellness minded lifestyle, and having good standing posture is an important part of that.  If this blog sparked your interest, consult with a personal trainer, physical therapist, chiropractor, or other health care provider for further guidance.  I will end with this, Will Rogers has been quoted as saying “Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.”  So get motivated, educated, and most importantly proactive in your health.