A Body in Good Alignment is a Body with no Restriction

The human body is one that desires one thing in terms of movement – freedom with cooperation between the front, back and each side. All muscles working together as they are designed to do. Some facilitating movement, whilst others inhibiting movement. These roles and responsibilities changing moment to moment depending on what we are doing.

Good alignment of joints means every muscle does its job spontaneously with the exact amount of force needed for the task at hand. When we are out of alignment, many systems of the body suffer but specific to the musculoskeletal system, we get muscular imbalance and force distribution that will create weakness rather than strength. All of this can go unnoticed for a very long time. The first we know about it, a niggling low back, a tightness in the hip, nerve symptoms such as pain, numbness and so on. By the time we become aware there is a problem, be assured your nervous system has been dealing with it and compensating in some way for potentially years!!

Every movement we make throughout every day requires spontaneous organisation by the nervous system to create the appropriate muscular work. Most natural movements of the human body requires some muscles to perform the movement and bunch of others to assist and control any unwanted associated movement. In very simple terms, we need to move stuff around whilst other stuff stays still!!

Let’s have a look at the most basic movement we all take for granted every day – walking. Bipedal gait (humans walking) is in fact very complex – possibly the most complex movement pattern on the planet.

So in gait, when one hip swings forward, the other has to stabilise. Our thoracic spine needs to mobilise in order for our arms to swing. One set of obliques facilitates the rotation whilst the other set inhibits excessive rotation. From the ground up this is indicative of gait and that’s before we dive deep down the rabbit hole of postural neurology!! You get the picture - there’s a whole lot going on.

Now if our skeletal alignment is a bit out of whack, this complex but very natural movement pattern doesn’t work. We start to move from places that should be stable and lock up places that should be mobile. The spine is the greatest example of this – our thoracic spine gets stuck from the hours we spend in poor posture at our desk, using technology etc so we start to move from our low back and pelvis.

Instead of one of our arms swinging forward and the other behind us, they both start to hang in front and swing side to side. Our heads are in forward posture which inhibits the glutes (hip extensors) from firing so now we have tight hip flexors and for sure tight hamstrings. You will still walk or run wherever you are going but most likely will have some restrictions like tight hamstrings, tension in the neck or of course the all-too-common LBP (low back pain) Lightbulb moment – our feet don’t hold us up!! Everything between shoulders & hips holds us up. When we walk, we are in fact spending about 70% of the time on one foot. If you enjoy running, you are spending 100% of the time on one foot. Problem number one is that many people can’t balance on one foot. How are we walking you might ask? Well in fact we are simply falling from one foot to the other – no wonder orthotics exist as our full body weight crashes down to the bottom of our feet. The forces of movement go through joints

which get weak as a result, rather than the muscular system which would get strong as a result.

When we slouch forward and lose alignment, the entire back of us ceases to do its job in stabilise the spine. Our abdominals don’t work, our heavy head hangs in front putting strain through our necks & shoulders – queue inactive glutes, floppy triceps, wingy shoulder blades, osteoarthritis, disc bulges to name but a few. We are, ultimately, training to need a walking frame and having a high risk of falls in later years.

Fix your alignment now, build the endurance to hold your spine and pelvis stable and to muscularly suspend yourself against gravity. Creating stability is the best workout you will ever do, and this allows the nervous system to grant you the gifts of mobility, flexibility and the complete enjoyment of free and natural movement.