by John Reed, RMT
Being a Massage Therapist in a very busy city like Calgary for the past 11 years, I have spent many hours deep into the tissues of thousands of clients. Over 15 000 sessions have led to many realizations and understandings about how the body carries tension, how it becomes posturally distorted, and what tends to keep the musculoskeletal system from finding a state of balance that allows for movement free of pain and restriction.
There are a multitude of factors that lead to pain and discomfort. One of the biggest and most managed causes is stress. It affects all of us. We deal with it, adapt to it, and try to avoid it! Stress in all its forms finds its way into our lives from countless sources. I start with stress, because of its compounding affect on everything else. All things contributing to postural stain are only made worse by stress.
There is no greater factor that affects our predominate posture, which impacts our movements, feelings, and ability to cope with everything, than our habitual postures. Let me explain how our three most habitual patterns impact our postural reality so much.
Nothing in life is done more than standing, sitting, and sleeping!
Your unique way of doing each of these things, has the greatest impact on what your postural reality is. The accidents, sports injuries, broken limbs, nor your genetics are nearly as impactful as the three things you spend the most time doing. Is there an hour in the day that you are not doing one of those three things? How do you sit throughout the day? How do you stand? What body position is held most throughout the sleeping hours each night?
So many of my clients have office occupations that have them holding seated positions for 4-8 hours per day! That may not seem so dramatic until you do some basic projections. This may equate to 20-40 hours a week. That’s 80-160 hour a month, or close to 2000 hours a year…just at work! Then add in the hours in the car, on the couch, at the dinner table, coffee shops, restaurants, and don’t forget the throne! Certainly we could double the hours seated at work, and realize the staggering amount of time spent in this posture changing position!
The Psoas and Rectus Femoris muscles are our primary hip flexors. They are held in a significantly shortened position while we sit for long periods. The major one is the Psoas, which attaches on the anterolateral aspect of our lumbar spine. It follows downward to attach to our thigh bone, the femur. Holding a seated posture for many hours a day trains this muscle to be a shorter muscle. The problems of low back pain and discomfort begin when we try to stand after long periods of sitting. The Psoas’ attempts to maintain the shortened length cause it to pull the lumbar spine forward toward the femur. The low back tends to tighten or even spasm to prevent this forward pull. Over long periods of time the result is chronic back pain.
Having your knees bent at 90 degrees, for countless yearly hours of sitting, also tends to lead to incredibly tight hamstrings! No wonder as we age it gets to harder to touch our toes! Sitting is also hardly kind to our neck and shoulders.
Massage therapy is often used to address the muscular imbalances developed from having your hands on a mouse or keyboard. Your head progressively leans forward to get a closer look at your monitor throughout the day. Throw in a few variables such as the tendency to lean on one butt cheek more than the other, not using a head set, and always mousing with the same hand, and it becomes clear the very act of sitting creates many of the postural distortions which massage therapy address every day.
The second habitual posture we all have our own variation of, is how we stand. It is something rarely given much attention, but all of us have a habitual standing posture. Simply bringing your awareness to your body while standing at any given moment can reveal interesting things about how your muscles have their way with your skeletal structure.
Simply glancing down at your feet periodically, without adjusting yourself to some ideal pose, reveals what is likely a reoccurring theme. Are your feet consistently in a similar position every time you look down? Is one always out in front? Is one always rotated in the same direction? These consistencies reveal muscular holding patterns that are having their way with your skeletal structure. You may notice the bodies desire to shift weight more to one side. This too relates to certain muscle being held in more contracted states, than their opposites. Massage therapy looks to reveal the imbalances within our muscle groups and restore it.
Every muscle in our body has an opposite. If one has to contract, its opposite must relax. Our bodies function optimally, when our muscles are balanced in length, strength, and flexibility. When a muscle and its opposite are out of balance, we have less pain-free, fluid, dynamic movement and function.
Massage therapy practitioners help reveal postural distortions and the habitual patterns contributing to these distortions and introduce opposition to the habitual posture. Once you discover the habitual postures and their opposites, it becomes easier to find the balance. It is here where freedom from postural strain can be discovered. Contrary to assumptions, sleep is not always an escape to postural strain.
Have you aver tried switching sides of the bed? Your partner not too interested? Likely you haven’t been too interested either! Why? We are habitual creatures. We move in habitual ways and do habitual things. We also sleep in very habitual patterns. Some people sleep on their stomachs. Their head tends to be rotated and laterally flexed for many hours a night.
So you may think side sleeping is better. Maybe. If you tend to be predominately on one side, the shoulder against the mattress is definitely being held differently than the other. What position are your legs in? Is one relatively straight, while the other is bent at the hip and knee? Did I mention 6-8 hours is a typical sleep? How will your long held, habitual sleeping position, affect your proper anatomical standing position? Our body adopts its own sense, of normal standing posture, under great influence of what the body wants to do. Invariably, the body wants to move into the position it spends the most time in. Your every instinct, understanding, and programmed sense of what normal standing is, is challenged by the postures that we hold for longer periods than any other. The result is postural strain.
Massage therapy focuses intently on those muscles holding you in out-of-balance postures. Once these muscles are released of tension, your body enjoys the experience of a more fluid and pain-free range of motion. If you can move daily into positions and ranges which oppose your habitual patterns, you are encouraging a state of balance. With a little help from your massage therapist, you will discover more about your body and how your habitual postures become your unconscious postures. Through the massage therapy process you will encounter new postures thereby helping to bring conscious awareness and balance to your body.
About the Author:
For over a decade, John Reed has been using
Massage Therapy in Calgary, Alberta, to promote balance and peak health to thousands of clients. His clinic Fruition Therapeutics offers services in Reflexology, Tui Na Massage, Acupuncture, Traditional Chinese medicine, Reiki therapy,
Thai Massage, Pregnancy Massage, and full body massage.
