New Year, New You - Again?

New year, new you – again?

It’s the start of the New Year and with it comes the familiar annual resolution to get fitter, stronger, more flexible, finally finish the couch to 5k etc. But before we all don our shiny new trainers and start pounding the pavements, I suggest we take a moment to understand our alignment and posture and how important it can be in keeping us injury-free, moving effortlessly and efficiently.

Who am I?

My name is Sandie, and I am a Pilates and Biomechanics instructor with over 14 years experience helping people to build and maintain strong, flexible and functional bodies. Biomechanics is the study of the human body in motion, which I pair with over 14 years of Pilates practice to devise a system which works to identify and rectify imbalances within the body.

Body in balance

Take the good old hip flexors as an example of a very common, relatively modern, imbalance. Together, the Psoas Major and the iliacus make up the Iliopsoas muscle. They work to flex the hip i.e. bring your knee towards your chest. They work in conjunction with Glute Max. So, when your hips are flexing, glute max is relaxing and when glute max is contracting i.e. you are taking your leg back behind you, the hip flexors are relaxed – or they should be.

Tight hip flexors will most likely result in a decreased range of movement, making it hard to extend the hip (take the leg back behind you, i.e. when walking). If you are unable to fully extend your hip, you may not be able to activate your gluteus maximus muscle, which may lead to weakened glutes, poor posture and injury and pain in other parts of the body as they work to compensate for the lack of mobility. Tight hip flexors could bring down the most powerful muscle in the body. Balance is so important to moving well and avoiding injury.

Hip Flexors

With that in mind, the first thing you might like to consider when deciding to embark on a new fitness campaign is how well do you know your body?

How’s your plumb line?

or example, how do you naturally stand? Do you know your own posture? How’s your plumb line? Have you acquired a pelvic tilt over the years, or have you got excessive curvature in any part of the spine? What’s your range of movement like in, say, your right hip? Is it the same as your left hip? How are your hip flexors? Would you even know where they are and what you should expect from them? And what about the good old hamstrings? Are they tight and if so, what is the knock-on effect of that.

If, on the whole, you have no idea what the answer is to any of the previous questions you might want to grab a cup of tea and read on, before lacing up the new trainers and hoping for the best. Knowledge is power, so here goes.

Alignment

The foundation of moving well, resisting injury and maintaining a balanced body is good postural alignment. All bodies are different but a good rule of thumb is using the plumb line to try and work out how well-aligned your posture is.

It helps to have someone take a photograph of you standing side-on, in your natural stance so you can judge your alignment for yourself. That’s the easy part, trying to fathom out why you stand that way is a different matter altogether.

There are thousands of postural issues that can occur in the human body, however there are some that I see more regularly than others.

Common misalignments that I see often involve the pelvis, if the pelvis is out of alignment the rest of the body will also be out of kilter. A pelvis that is held in a neutral position will have the left and right anterior superior iliac spine on the same anatomical plane as the pubic bone. A neutral pelvis will be able to distribute the weight of the upper body causing the least amount of wear and tear, the lumbar vertebrae will be evenly compressed and wear and tear will be minimal.

To find out if you naturally maintain a neutral pelvis, lie down with your knees bent and put an imaginary marble on the pelvis, below the navel and above the pubic bone. If the marble rolls towards the public bone, this suggests an anterior pelvic tilt. The marble rolling towards the navel suggests a posterior pelvic tilt.

Any long-term tilt of the pelvis will have a knock-on effect to the rest of the body, which may lead to reduced sporting performance, dysfunction, pain and injury.

Another common posture is the slouched position caused by long periods of sitting. This position sees the head forward of the shoulders, placing strain on neck, shoulder and upper back muscles, weakened abdominal muscles and overstretched back muscles. Hip flexors may become short and weak, which will in turn affect other parts of the body such as the pelvis, hamstrings and gluteal muscles.

In short, the body is a finely tuned kinetic chain. If one link in the chain isn’t doing its job properly, something else within the chain will pay the price.

Posture is the absolutely key to building and maintaining a fit and healthy body, so before you start running or lifting, check your posture. In short, before you embark on a new fitness campaign, get the fundamentals in place. if the very core, fundamentals (i.e. your spine and core muscles) are not in good alignment, you will be compromising good form, efficiency and possibly risking injury.

Over the next few months, I will be sharing Blogs, which will delve more deeply into postural issues and how we can address them. In the meanwhile, if you have any questions or would like more information, please do get in touch.

Happy New Year!