In order to be truly strong, fast and reliably injury proof – along with aging terrifically well – it is essential to stand up straight. Over the next few paragraphs, I’ll explain why we want to stand up straight, how we are designed to stand up straight and then five reasons why everyone else is not standing up straight, after all, who wants to slump along through life?
When we stand up straight, our spine will be in it’s optimal position – shaped in a gentle, flexible S curve. The spaces between the vertebra will be ideal, so the nerves that tell the muscles to ‘Go’ are not compressed, so can fire optimally. Also messages from the body to the brain, via the brain stem and cerebellum whizz up there. This is simplistic, I admit, but overall when we can lengthen up the spine everything can work in harmony and as a result, we get quicker, stronger, more flexible, have better balance, better reactions, see better and so on – we become athletes in whatever we are doing.
We are designed to stand up straight and be strong and athletic – as Dr Cobb of Z-Health would have it, we are ALL athletes.
Finally I understand why Doctor Cobb says this and I completely agree with him. It’s only taken me about 35 years to gain this understanding – I get there in the end….
And it’s all in the design which is to work with gravity. Gravity has been affecting us since birth. Lengthening up uses gravity to get us into an optimal spinal position. Part of our brainstem, the PMRF ((PMRF is short for pontomedullary reticular formation.
Somatic [relating to the body] motor control – Some motor neurons send their axons to the reticular formation nuclei, giving rise to the reticulospinal tracts of the spinal cord. These tracts function in maintaining tone, balance, and posture—especially during body movements. The reticular formation also relays eye and ear signals to the cerebellum so that the cerebellum can integrate visual, auditory, and vestibular stimuli in motor coordination. Other motor nuclei include gaze centers, which enable the eyes to track and fixate objects, and central pattern generators, which produce rhythmic signals to the muscles of breathing and swallowing. Wikipedia: Reticular Formation
This is absolutely fascinating! I hope you can see how we have to have good integration between the eyes, the inner ears – vestibular – gait (central pattern generators), breathing and so on. This is far more than a feeble footnote. But complex to get the head around.)) sends strong signals down the body to achieve this. Above the middle of the upper back, at the level of T6, the PMRF stops us stooping which fires up the upper back muscles to have us stand up straight, eyes on the horizon. Below this level, the PMRF stops us shortening our lower back, so we end up with a lengthening spine. Standing up straight is actually a dynamic process.
So why is everyone else slumping?? If we look around, the two most common postures we see are The Donald Duck – big bend in the lower and the upper back or The Pink Panther – the hips are forwards of the shoulders. A fear I come across commonly is developing a stoop in the upper back. If our brainstem is designed to have us tall and athletic, what goes wrong?
No surprises here: the problem is that lifestyle – sitting especially, poking our heads at a computer screen, spending hours on the phone with it held to one ear, slumping on the sofa; along with various injuries acrued along the way, messes up the design meaning that standing up straight no longer lengthens the spine, but shortens it in ways unique to the individual.
Problem number one: when told to stand up straight, the commonest result is to throw out the lower rib cage and pull back the shoulders, which feels as if we bring the head back over the body – which it usually does. And having stood up straight for a couple of minutes, we slowly resume our normal posture.
If we put our hands at the back base of the ribs and stand up straight, its common to feel that area narrowing. If we stand sideways on to a mirror, wearing tight clothes so we can see our normal posture and then stand up straight, if we look carefully, we can see that the spine actually shortens to achieve this – the back of the head gets closer to the ground. The problem is we have lost how to stand up straight.
Years ago I had 13 years of Alexander Technique lessons – at least one lesson a week, frequently more. The Alexander Technique mantra goes like this: ‘Head forwards and up, back lengthens and widens, knees forwards and away.’ I never could get my head around head forwards – surely they didn’t mean like a chicken?
Pilates instructors will talk about a bit of string pulling us up.
Yogis talk of the crown chakra.
Problem number two – where do we go up from? It’s a matter of finding the crown of the head. As one of my clients put it, we think of the head like a box, flat on the top, whereas the shape of the skull is more like an egg. If we rub around near the back of the top of the head, we find the crown of the head – usually there is a bit of a bump there. The crown sits directly over the central part of the spine, meaning that lengthening up means growing into the crown and not further forwards.
A third problem that makes standing up straight hard to achieve is a stiff spine. A Z health drill that suits most people is what the physios call humping and hollowing – bending the upper back forwards and backwards. This starts to address a stiff upper back – and a foggy upper back movement map.
A fourth problem is faulty inputs from the joints of the body, from the eyes, from the inner ears along with poor breathing habits. And indeed, clearing these problems really help the PMRF work well – this is the stuff of Z health.
A fifth and final problem is that to stand up straight feels really, really weird. The key to firing up the PMRF lies in the Alexandra mantra Head Forwards and Up, back lengthens and widens, knees go forwards and away. If you read the foot note, you will see a reference to motor patterns. We do not usually think about how we walk, stand and move about generally; these movements are completely automatic. The next blog about riding the backwards bicycle is an excellent demonstration of how hard it can be to undo these patterns. However, I and my clients are rediscovering what it is to Lengthen Up – and how good movement and strength feels when we do; so it can be done by ordinary people with busy lives.