This common mistake may be the biggest reason why, you will never correct your posture …
One very common mistake people make when correcting their posture, is they use the wrong treatment approach. If you’ve been following my 7 Biggest Posture Mistakes series, you’ll recall that we distinguished structural problems from functional problems.
For the 10-20% of us whose bad posture has a structural cause (scoliosis, short leg, worn discs, reversed spinal curves for example), the appropriate treatment approach must also be structural. In other words, a structural problem, needs a structural solution!
A functional or generic treatment approach (exercise classes, personal training, muscle strengthening) can never take altered spinal curves and straighten them out. It doesn’t matter how gifted your practitioner, therapist or exercise guru is, if the structure of the spine is not understood, and specific traction and/or mirror image rehab exercises applied, you will never get the results that you want.
If you have a structural problem, you need someone who is qualified to understand the structure of the spine and has hopefully spent many years measuring and interpreting posture from the study of spinal x-rays. A mechanic may be very gifted at recognizing problems from the external sounds your car is making, but they would NEVER give you a diagnosis or ‘treat’ your car, without first studying what is underneath the hood!
If you have spent years trying to correct your posture with exercise programs and numerous approaches, but when you look in the mirror you see little change, then you may have a structural problem that requires a structural solution.
Where do you think the structural problems are in your spine and what makes you think that?