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Posture and Strength Training – Is there a crossover?
Chris Reed MPT, OCS, ATC
Agile Physical Therapy
I came up with the idea for this article from a recent post on the FIT Forum. Postural training is a topic I cover on a daily basis with my clients. However, I had never thought about whether a strength-training program could truly affect one’s static posture. So let’s start with a review of ideal posture in a sitting and standing position. Then I will discuss the phases of motor learning and how strength training may or may not play a role improving one’s posture.
Ideal standing posture can be signified by a plumb lined hung from the ceiling. The plumb line should fall through the lobe of the ear, the bodies of the cervical vertebrae, through the center of the shoulder joint, and midway through the trunk in the upper quarter. For the lower quarter, the plumb line should fall through the greater trochanter of the femur, just anterior to the midline of the knee, and slightly anterior to the lateral malleolus of the ankle. The feet should ideally be facing forward with a slight toe out position of about 7-10 degrees.
Ideal sitting posture can be described with the following guidelines. The feet should be resting flat on the floor (or on a box depending on the seat height). The knees should be bent to about 90 degrees with about 2-3 inches between the end of the seat and the back of the knees. The hips should be flexed to slightly less than 90 degrees and be slightly above the knees. The lumbar spine should be supported by the back of the chair or by a lumbar support pillow. The shoulders and trunk should be aligned directly over the hips. The ears should be aligned directly above the shoulders.
Now that we know what the ideal postural positions should be, lets discuss the Fitt’s three stages of motor learning, to identify how one goes through the transformation from poor posture to good posture. The first phase is the cognitive stage of the motor learning process. In this stage the learner has to be consciously aware of their behavior and relies on both external and internal feedback to correct errors. Next comes the associative stage. During this stage, the learner starts to understand the various components to the skill and is able to detect and correct training errors on their own. The final phase of the motor learning process is the autonomous stage. This is the stage where the learner is able to perform the skill being learned with few errors and in a variety of situations.
All right, now we know how to obtain proper posture and we know the different stages of learning a new skill or task. The question that remains now is the one we started with, can strength training improve one’s posture. My initial thoughts on this topic were posted on the FIT Forum in early January and are reprinted below:
“The problem I see with "strength" training to improve posture is that most of the time, we are working the Phasic muscles in the body. These are the muscles that are responsible for movement through space, they act quickly. When thinking of Phasic muscles, you can think Pectorals, Quads, Hamstrings. The muscles that affect and control posture are our Tonic Muscles (think transverse abdominus, lower trapezius, rhomboids). These muscles are designed to be "on" for long periods of time to counteract the pull of gravity. Therefore, they need to be trained with low loads and high repetitions.”
Honestly, I continued to believe these thoughts up until I started to do a little more research for this article. While going through my Motor Learning text from school, I came across the idea of generalizability, or transfer, of the learning. This is the idea that you don’t “practice” always in the exact same environment as you perform. For example, you come into FIT to see one of the trainers. They make you do kettle bell squats during your workout. Because you have done this exercise time and again over the last several months, you don’t think twice about it when you go to lift the crate of books in your garage over the weekend. You just walk up to the crate; get it between your feet, squat with your legs while keeping your back in a neutral position, and pick up the crate with no problem. Now you never really practiced picking up the crate, but the kettle bell squat “transferred” to the real life situation in which you used it.
So, how does all this relate to posture? Well, if you are training in the gym properly, then you are constantly activating your postural muscle groups to maintain good form during your workout. Because you are constantly “practicing” this skill, then it is reasonable to deduce that you would be able to “transfer” the practiced skill into real life situations of sitting and standing.
Now some of you may be thinking, “but when I am at the gym, I am moving dynamically, and when I am sitting at my desk, I am in a static position. So how does transfer happen?” Let’s think about it. Say you are doing seated rows and overhead squats as a part of your workout. Both of these maneuvers have a static and dynamic component to them. With the seated rows, your trunk is relatively static, while you make the motion with your shoulders and arms. In the overhead squat, you perform a squat while statically holding the bar overhead and maintaining good trunk position. Now while sitting at your desk may seem purely static, let’s examine it a little closer. I believe most of us are typing at a computer, reaching for a phone, shuffling through papers, etc. Hmmm….seems somewhat similar to the seated row. Maybe transfer can happen.
This by no means is scientific proof and I do not know of any that exists on the subject. However, I hope this has spawned some thought about working toward improving your posture for most of you. Let me end with a little tid-bit I give to my patients who have a desk job to help improve their posture. I like to tell them to place a note somewhere that they will see it often. Most of the time I use the top right corner of their computer monitor. I tell them to use a bright sticky note that will catch their eye and to write on it something like "how's your posture" or "sit up" or "I hate Chris." Anything that will make them think of our "posture conversation." Then everytime they go to close down a program or minimize something, they will end up in the top right of their screen, see the note, and consciously think about how they are sitting. I am positive this happens several times an hour for most of you. After awhile, you will notice that you no longer are "correcting" your posture, but that you are naturally sitting in a good postural position...and "training" your postural muscles to work properly.
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