Posture Therapy: A Quick Synopsis
“Speaking generally, all parts of the body which have function, if used in moderation and exercised in labours to which each is accustomed, become thereby healthy and well developed, and age slowly, but if unused and left idle, they become liable to disease, defective in growth, and age quickly."
Hippocrates c 460-375 B.C.
More About Posture Therapy:
Hippocrates was right. The human body was designed to move – walk, run, jump, climb, dance, do physical labor, ect. When the body gets adequate movement it generally functions well and according to its design “blueprint”, relying on “prime mover” muscles to get the work done. When the body does not get sufficient movement - basically the situations most Americans find themselves in today - one negative consequence is the prime movers lose their function and secondary, back-up muscles must take over. Muscles tell the bones what to do, and when secondary muscles do the work they move the bones however they can- generally not according to the blueprint design- and that’s when we get into trouble and develop movement limitations and pain. Joints become misaligned and our posture suffers.
How is Posture Therapy different from traditional physical therapy?
First, Posture therapy is non-medical. We do not use drugs, surgery, manipulation, or any kind of machinery to move the body. Second, Posture Therapy treats the body as a unit, rather than isolating areas where pain is localized and treating them solely. For example, when you go to a traditional physical therapist for knee pain, you are generally given exercises to address issued specific to the knee. When you come to Pain Free Kauai with knee pain, we look at such things as your shoulder position, your spinal curve, and what your feet are doing to determine our course of action, because misalignments anywhere in the body
will have an impact on the knee.
How does Posture therapy Method work for me?
The goal of Posture Therapy is to train you to understand how your body is designed to move - its pain-free blueprint - how you violate that blueprint with whatever misalignments you present, and what needs to be done to restore proper alignment go get you out of pain and regain functional movement. Everyone who comes to the clinic brings his/her unique combination of issues, so everyone is given exercises specific to their issues, making Posture Therapy very personalized and tailored to meet the various needs, fitness
levels, and goals of each individual client.
Taking Charge of your own therapy
The ultimate goal of Posture Therapy is to put you in charge of your own physical health, at least as it pertains to your physical function, so you can move better and be healthier.
The postural education you receive in each session in conjunction with the menu of exercises you are given provides you the tools to get (and keep yourself) out of pain. So you don’t have to continue to make appointments with health specialists again and again. You become the expert in terms of what works best for your body to keep it out of pain. The caveat is that you must be willing to sit in the driver’s seat- accept responsibility for your own health- which is foreign concept to most of us, having always looked to medical experts to be “fixed”.