HOW WELL ARE YOUR AGING? Posture and Alignment Assessments - Explanations

So how does your body line up? Any surprises? A lot of surprises? Please read the following to better understand proper body posture and alignment at all ages.

#1 Head Posture

Do your ears align over your shoulders? Good posture is having your ears align over your shoulders, always. If not, you have a forward head posture. The further the head moves forward of the shoulders; the more stress is caused to your neck’s muscles, tendons, and ligaments and to the structures; the discs, cartilage, facets joints and bones of your vertebrae due to the force put on them to hold your head up against gravity. This can lead to headaches, neck, shoulder and upper back pain and especially increased wear and tear on all these structures over time. If you look around at people in today’s technology driven society, unfortunately most people have varying degrees of forward head posture, especially in the young!

#2 Shoulder Posture

Stand facing a mirror, are your shoulders level? Is one shoulder higher than the other? If you noticed your shoulders are not level, it could be due to many habitual behaviors of which you are not even aware. For example, always using the same arm to carry your grocery bags or luggage or using the same shoulder to carry your purse or backpack. Do you tend to hold your child on the same side of your body? Do you sit nightly on the same side of a couch with one arm not supported? This uneven alignment causes muscle tightness on one side of your neck and shoulder that then disrupts the proper movement of your shoulder and neck joints causing degenerative wear and tear. That, you guessed it, can lead to headaches, neck, shoulder, and back pain.

#3 Shoulder Blade Posture

Does one or both of your shoulder’s blades wing outwards? Your shoulder blades (scapulae) should rest against the back of your rib cage. In fact, your scapulae are shaped to fit snuggly against the curve of your ribs. If they do not, this is most likely due to the forward rounding of your back that pulls the shoulder blades apart and frontward which leads to thoracic kyphosis, back pain and increased wear and tear on the structures of your vertebrae.

#4 Shoulder Blade Alignment

Do each of your shoulder blades lie about two inches (2-3 fingers width) from your spine? A width greater this is due to the forward rounding of the back. Think about it, most of our activities throughout our day are in front of us, causing us to curve forward; eating, looking at our phone or computer, reading or studying, driving, cooking, sleeping on your side, especially if you have broad shoulders, etc…. Also, are you a tall person who is always looking downward? All these activities cause us to bend forward multiple times a day and usually for extended periods of time. Unfortunately, the body adapts and stays habitually in this position that usually gets worse over time.

#5 Arm Alignment

Stand facing a mirror while resting your arms down by your sides, do your palms face the side of your hips, or are they turned inwards? If your palms turn inward, it is most likely due to the forward rounding of your back causing tightness in the front of your shoulders. Also, look to see if your arms hang straight. If they are bent at the elbows, this may be due to the tightness in your biceps muscles from having your arms bent throughout your day from using the computer, phone, driving, etc.

#6 Thoracic Spine & Upper Body Posture

 

 

Can you sit with your low back, shoulder blades and head touching a wall and then slide your arms up the wall without having your any of your body parts pulled away from the wall? This will be impossible if you have a rounded back and forward head posture. If you can keep all your body touching, you have good postural alignment. Please keep it!

#7 Lower Leg Alignment

Stand facing a mirror, are your legs straight with your thigh bones aligned over your shin bones and your kneecaps facing forwards, both legs or just one? Because your knee is between your hip and ankle joints, if either one of these joints are not align properly, your knee joint will suffer due to the unnatural twisting at the knee to try to right the misalignment of your hip(s) and/or ankle(s) so you walk forward and not sideways. The knee joint is not supposed to bend inward or outward either. The knee joints’ main job is to fully straighten and bend your leg. Excessive stress to your knee(s) and misalignment of your hips or ankles can cause pain to all these joints and go up the chain to the other joints above, such as your low back.

#8 Foot Alignment

Walk towards a mirror, do your toes point forward or turn outward or inward, just one or both feet? If you find that your feet do not point forward, and you do not have a history of an injury, surgery or were born with a joint abnormality, this misalignment either from your ankles, knees and/or hips are most likely due to a habitual or repetitive positioning of your body throughout your day or night, such as sleeping on your side, especially if you have broad hips and/or cross your legs multiple times throughout the day and for long periods of time. Do you lock your knees when you stand? Repeating this day after day, week after week, month after month, you see my point, will over time change your body’s natural alignments resulting in an imbalance of the strength and flexibility of the muscles that support these joints. This imbalance causes instability of your joints the leads to degenerative wear and tear and pain.

#9 Foot Posture

Do both of your feet have an arch between the bottom of your toes and your heel? Unless you were told you were born with flat feet or have a congenital deformity such as club feet and do not have any medical concerns such as neurological or circulatory issues with your lower legs and feet, you should have an arch. If you no longer have an arch, this may be from your choice of shoe wear and lack of flexibility and strength in the muscles at the bottom of your foot. When is the last time you have either stretched or strengthened the muscles in your foot? Have you ever even thought about the muscles and joints in your feet?

#10 Toe Alignment

Can you fit a finger between each of your toes? If not, you are losing the flexibility of your toes as well as their proper alignment. This may be due again to your shoe wear. If your toes are trapped in shoes that are tight or have a very narrow toe box, they will lose their flexibility and their ability to move. They will adapt to their environment and start to remain pressed together or even worse, start to crowd and cross over each other. This can hinder your ability to walk, decrease your balance and increase your risk of a fall.

My hope is to make you aware of these all-too-common poor posture and body alignments. Now that you are aware, it is hard not to see.

Please look at my second set of assessments – How Well Are You Aging – Mobility and Flexibility to see how well you can move and bend. I will then follow up with explanations of normal mobility and flexibility.

In future blogs, my goal is to continue to educate on proper posture and alignment as well as normal mobility and flexibility. To explore why our posture, mobility and pain becomes worse over time and to explain how you can correct and improve your body’s ability to move.

I hope to make you understand that this is not just because of the aging process, you do have a lot of control over how sprightly you will age.

Personal Note:

If you noticed in the pictures above, my right shoulder is lower than my left, my right shoulder blade wings out and my right arm turns outward. This is due to tightness, scarring and complications I experienced from a blood clot and surgery to my right upper arm and upper chest when I was in my early 40’s. Even though I stretch and work on these areas regularly, I will always have some limitation due to this trauma. But I have prevented these areas from getting much worse. So please keep this in mind when you are assessing your body. No one’s body will be perfect, and it does not have to be to function. Correcting what you can, may help to prevent further wear and tear, tightness, injury and pain to the tissues of your body.