Do you have good posture?
Healthy posture starts from the ground up, positioning our feet correctly is the first step to correct posture.
Physical therapist Lisa Morrone discusses the building blocks of good posture.
“It’s much like building a block tower when you were a child, if the base is correct, and then every block on top of it is aligned properly then the tower doesn’t fall over.
Our feet are our base; it’s important that our feet are underneath our bodies. This might seem obvious, but Lisa says it’s more complicated than it seems.
“Specifically that they land underneath our hip joints, most people have their feet either pushed together too tightly and they’re stabilizing themselves with their inner thigh muscles to stand up, or they have their legs in an athletic position way out to the side.”
Having our feet directly underneath us is very important to maintain good posture. Take a look at where your feet are when you sit or stand, and you might be surprised what you find.
When we are sitting, it’s important for our legs to be supported and not dangling from whatever we are sitting on.
“If you do not have foot support, you’re going to markedly increase the disk pressure in your lower back.
The second building block of good posture is the pelvic block.
“This is our hips and the lower quadrant of our body, where our legs meet our trunk, our pelvis needs to be lined up over our feet.
When standing, our pelvis should be centered right over our body, not too far in front of us or the back of us.
If you feel more pressure on the ball or heel of your foot, you know that your pelvis is not centered over your body. Pressure should be distributed across the entire foot if your pelvis is centered correctly.
Many of the most common ailments such as back pain and headaches can be the result of bad posture. Today, take time to look at your posture and see if there are changes you can make to improve your health.
