Importance Of Balanced Posture By Malkeet Singh Kang

What is a Postural assessment ? 

It is a way of checking if the joints are aligned and balanced. Resting muscle tone (tension), resting muscle length is assessed. When body is balanced there is no altered reciprocal inhibition. Altered reciprocal inhibition will cause compensation adaptive shortening, weakness and impaired movement. From the assessment we can determine with muscle are overactive and underactive and then design a plan to correct any muscular imbalances present to achieve proper muscle function and movement patterns. Postural assessments are done alongside movement assessments to get a good picture of how the body is imbalanced.

Imbalanced muscles are like riding a buckled bicycle or a car that has different air pressures in the tyres. Altered length and tension relationships in the muscles lead to less force production and impaired movement which decreases performance and increases injury risk. IF a boxers upper cross syndrome is treated his muscles will fire better and his performance will increase. Same goes for a sprinter with lower cross syndrome, once treated his muscles will fire better too. Altered muscle activity is an injury waiting to happen, the body is a kinetic chain and it all works together, an imbalance in one place can affect the rest of the body. It is vital to have a good flexibility and strength program to avoid imbalances and the negative performance affects it has on athletes and normal civilians.

With lower cross syndrome the glutes of the sprinter will be underactive, the hamstrings will become overactive. This can lead to hamstring strains, and possible hip flexor contractures reducing range of motion. The body is all about tension distribution, when this is balanced the body will work optimally. It is vital that everyone has basic biomechanical knowledge to improve health; I feel some basics need to be thought in P.E in all secondary schools, as a prehab method. Shortened and tightened muscles pull on joints, making the limbs heavy and slow. If certain muscles get shortened and tight, this can affect your breathing and quality of life. It is important to release muscles after working out.