Whilst there is no such thing as ‘perfect posture’ and a myriad of individual ways that each person moves (biomechanics) there are certainly loading patterns on the body that can be affected by habit, especially as the duration of loading increases, the body ages, or the intensity of loading increases. Often there are easily-performed small changes to technique that can relatively ‘unload’ symptomatic areas. For example, a change in the way someone walks up stairs or rises from a chair can significantly reduce knee pain and back pain.
Our exercise physiologists pride themselves on identifying repeatable and easily-adopted changes in day-to-day movements and posture that will assist in patients reducing their symptoms. The subtle changes need to be incorporated into your usual routine – home, shopping, gardening, working, exercising – for best effect, otherwise you will be relying on a very small amount of ‘exercise time’ to make a difference whilst the majority of your time is actually in your normal sustained suboptimal posture or biomechanics.
Too often people have well-intentioned strengthening or rehabilitation programs and yet they are merely increasing their strength in learned movement compensations – instead of correcting an observable biomechanical issue. These compensations often reach a threshold point where the tissue can no longer deal with the extra loading.