How to Resolve Upper Crossed Syndrome with Clinical Somatics Exercises In this article I'll explain what upper crossed syndrome is and the muscular patterns involved. At the end of the article, I describe which Clinical Somatics exercises are most effective at fixing the postural misalignment. What is upper crossed syndrome? The term “upper crossed [...]
How to Retrain Your Proprioception and Posture As our nervous system learns to keep certain muscles tight—in response to repetitive activities, stress, injuries, and athletic training—we lose full voluntary control of the muscles. But this loss of control is only one reason why it's so hard to release muscle tension, get out of pain, [...]
The Cause of Idiopathic Scoliosis: Involuntary Muscle Contraction Scoliosis is regarded as mysterious and incurable by many people in the medical community. While some scoliosis cases are caused by congenital structural abnormalities or neurological or muscular diseases, the vast majority—around 85%—are of unknown cause. The fact is, the bones in our body do not [...]
How Muscles Contract in Scoliosis C Curve Learn how chronic, involuntary muscle contraction pulls the spine into a C curve, and how muscles on the opposite side of the spine contract to stabilize posture. Click here to watch this video in Spanish. Click here to watch this video in French. [...]
How to Prevent and Alleviate Spinal Degeneration Spinal degeneration refers to any breakdown or structural change in our spinal discs and vertebrae. The degeneration is virtually always the result of our chronic muscle tension, posture, and how we move and use our body on a regular basis. Spinal degeneration can occur at any age, [...]
How Your Sleeping Position Affects Your Posture, Proprioception, and PainAside from where you work, the place where you probably spend the most time is your bed. If you suffer from any type of musculoskeletal pain or tension, especially in your neck, shoulders, back, or hips, you should consider how your sleeping position might be contributing [...]
How to Even out the Imbalances in Your Body Scroll down to watch this video on Youtube We all have imbalances in the patterns of muscle tension between our right and left sides; that's because of how we use the dominant side of our body differently than our non-dominant side. These imbalanced muscular patterns [...]
Fix Forward Head Posture with Pandiculation Forward head posture is becoming an epidemic due to constant use of smartphones and computers. When we look downward over and over, the muscles in the front of our neck, our chest, and our abdomen become chronically contracted—and they keep us stuck in forward head posture all the [...]
10 Shocking Ways That Your Posture Affects Your Health Our posture—the way we sit and stand—is rarely genetic or out of our control. It's simply the result of chronic muscle tension pulling our skeleton out of alignment. This muscle tension builds up over time as a result of our daily movement habits and our [...]
How to get optimal strength, stability, and flexibility in your core What does core strength really mean, and why is it so important? The most common misconception about core strength is that it means simply having strong abdominals—like the enviable washboard stomach achieved by developing your rectus abdominis muscle. In truth, optimal core strength means [...]
How Personality Affects Posture We like to blame our posture on our genetics, on job stress, or on long hours spent at the computer-but did you know that our posture can be largely determined by our personality? Our posture, facial expressions, and movement communicate the way we feel inside, whether we like it or not. [...]
The Flexor Reflex and One-Sided Pain The Flexor Reflex and Injury Recovery Imagine that you've slipped on your icy front steps and sprained your ankle. On top of the fact that you don't have an exciting mountain climbing story to tell, you have to wear an ankle brace and use crutches for at least a [...]
How the Withdrawal Response Leads to Rounded Posture What is the Withdrawal Response? You're walking down the street and hear gunshots behind you. Within just fourteen milliseconds, your jaw muscles begin to contract. At twenty-five milliseconds, your upper trapezius muscles contract, raising your shoulders and bringing your head forward. At thirty-four milliseconds, the muscles of [...]
How the Action Response Leads to Back Pain How and Why We Develop the Natural Curves in Our Spine In the first few months of life we are entirely helpless, unable to crawl or even sit up by ourselves. We have spent nine months curled up in the fetal position and have yet to gain [...]
