Straighten Up
Sydney Morning Herald
Thursday June 1, 2000
The way you stand, sit and move can improve your body shape, so foster good posture. By TINA ELLIOTT
Sometimes in our exercise frenzy we overlook the obvious, most simple way of keeping fit. What could be more routine than the way you move - anywhere, any time?
Posture experts believe the way you carry yourself is the key to using your muscles in the most efficient way and staying in good shape.
"In exercise programs, we tend to inadvertently work on our bodies in the least effective way," says Francine St George, a physiotherapist who founded the Physiotherapy Posture Centre at Randwick. "Our bodies choose the easy way, so strong muscles usually get stronger, weak muscles get weaker and tight muscles get tighter. This perpetuates postural and muscular imbalances."
While we all want to be in better physical shape, graceful fluid movement can give you greater rhythmic compatibility with more people. This, says Alexander Technique and Feldenkrais practitioner David Hall, is the basis of genuine attraction between people.
"If you move well, people will notice you, not your shape. The point is not to view yourself as a static shape," he says.
Feldenkrais and Alexander practitioners and some physiotherapists work with clients to improve movement or work with a problem. The Alexander Technique, (founded by Frederick Alexander 1869-1955), scrutinises balance and unnecessary tensions which interfere with good movement.
Body shape is only partly hereditary. Being aware that the least movement, done frequently, can have a big effect is a good start to better movement.
Margaret Mayo, physiotherapist and Feldenkrais practitioner based in Sydney's inner-west, says our muscles and hence our shapes represent our habits. Moshe Feldenkrais (1904-1984) believed in gaining awareness through movement and breathing became a focus for good movement and health as it is in yoga.
People often go to Alexander and Feldenkrais practitioners with postural problems or pain and find these are physical manifestations of deeper attitudes or psychological states.
"We develop habits which help us cope," says Mayo. Feldenkrais said unless you change your movement patterns, you won't change your emotional patterns.
Women have been taught to take up less space and keep the legs together while men are "allowed to be big and rangy", she says.
Lawrence Bruce, Melbourne-based chairman of the Australian Society of Teachers of the Alexander Technique, says the psycho-physical view is that the way people present themselves physically also presents their state of mind.
"We're projecting what we perceive of ourselves and then we get it back," he says. When pushed for an example, he cites the classic victim as "rather shrunken, in a state of cringe" who will "probably draw people who enforce this - so they're constantly being victimised".
But fluid movements are not the only way to change body shape. After years of looking up, for instance, some short people often have a sway-back or lumbar lordosis, and are known as lordotic types.
Some potbellies on sway-backed people shrink wonderfully with a subtle forward tuck of the pelvis so that it's aligned with head and chest and weight is over the feet. This pulls the stomach muscles into action - but the trick is keeping the action going.
Mayo says: "If you move from the pelvis, a sway-back is less likely to happen."
Taller people who have rounded shoulders and carry weight on their backs are known as kyphotic because they tend to get a parallel curve, or thoracic kyphosis, in the chest.
St George says: "Lots of tall and thin-framed people get thick thighs because they often stand with knees locked back, slouched down onto the pelvis."
As always, whatever the body type, stress is involved. Tension in the back needs to be balanced by muscle tension in the front to pull the spine forward. Too much stress concentrated in the back can cause imbalance which weakens muscles at the front.
It's a question of balance.
How to walk tall
Consider posture in terms of the whole body. The old "walk tall" adage is good but it needs to be extended: down the centre of the head, in front of the spine, behind the hip joints, in front of the shins and through the middle of the feet at the instep.
Physiotherapist Francine St George suggests this "ideal" posture test:
*Stand with the back of the head against the wall, shoulders and chest open, shoulder-blades against the wall, heels five or 10 centimetres from it. You should be able to fit a couple of fingers between the wall and small of the back. Then see if you can raise your arms upward as straight as possible against the wall without increasing the curve in the small of the back.
*Alexander Technique and Feldenkrais Method awareness exercise:
Check your alignment. Lie on the floor with head slightly lifted by a book, knees bent, feet on floor. Let tensions go. Notice how your body's contact with the floor changes. Stand up and notice the difference. Check your alignment again.
For further information: Australian Society of Teachers of the Alexander Technique phone 1800 339 571 or
www. alexandertechnique .org.au; Australian Feldenkrais Guild 9555 1374; Australian Physiotherapy Association 8748 1555.
© 2000 Sydney Morning Herald
