Atlantic Ave Magazine August 2018

health & beauty | pain relief
By Dr. Safranski
Bad Posture
Text neck, tech neck, forward head posture, anterior
head carriage, upper crossed syndrome, military neck,
straightening of the cervical spine, and loss of lordosis
are all terms used by health care professionals today.
These big fancy words mean one thing, you have bad posture.
Aside from the aesthetics, why is posture important?
In a study published in Clinical Biomechanics, posture in
the cervical spine (neck) they found that having a forward flexed
posture was more likely to have an increase in failure of the disc in
the middle C3/4 or C5/6. This is important to note because most
people have this posture. When we have the increase in flexion or
loss of cervical lordosis, we become susceptible to injuries of the
spine and neck. Think about it like this, the discs act as the shock
absorbers of the neck, along with good biomechanics of the cervical
spine (posture) and well hydrated discs (shock absorbers),
the spine can absorb injuries and function as it should. Continuing
with the car analogy, if the alignment (cervical biomechanics) is
off, then the shock absorbers are going to wear out faster which
can lead to tires wearing out faster - and so on and so forth.
You might be asking yourself, how did I get like this? How did
this happen? What can I do to fix it? Well, this happens to all of us
with a cell phone, a computer, and those that have a desk job. We
are constantly looking down, stretching the posterior (back) side
of the neck - elongating and weakening the muscles in the back
and strengthening the muscles in the front, having forward rolled
shoulders. These repetitive actions that we do on a daily basis
cause long term changes. It is to note that our bodies are amazing
organisms. The human body does many adaptations to keep our
eyes on the horizon, and keep us upright and moving in our dayto-day
lives. However, it is not always the right way to compensate
for improper actions such as looking down at your phone, looking
at your computer screen or working out the big flexor muscle
groups. Eventually we will have symptoms like pain in the neck,
shoulders, numbness hands and fingers, muscle weakness, headaches,
limited movement and disc issues. If we don’t take care of
these postural corrections they can turn into much more severe
problems further down the road.
There are steps to take in order to regain what has been lost,
correct the necessary structures and live an active pain free lifestyle.
Step 1: go to a chiropractor and get an assessment that includes
x-rays range of motions and a postural assessment. Step 2:
Get adjusted. Getting adjusted puts motion back into the segments
of the cervical spine that have not been moving properly. This is
not only good from a biomechanics perspective, but from a physiologic
perspective. The spinal discs get their hydration through
movement, so any lack of movement in the cervical spine leads to
dehydrated discs. Step 3: Find a place that does non-surgical spinal
decompression or traction. Stretching the muscles ligaments
and tendons in the case of posture not only help establish plastic
deformation to restructure the ligaments of the cervical spine, but
it helps bring more motion in to the discs, to again, hydrate them.
Step 4: Stretching the anterior compartment of the cervical spine,
and strengthening the posterior compartment. This will ultimately
solidify the changes that are being made with the adjustment to
have long standing changes. Structure and function are correlated
- if the structures are good, you will function well.
Move well, live well.
The Conde Center For
Chiropractic Neurology
401 West Atlantic Avenue, Suite #014
Delray Beach, FL 33444
561-330-6096
www.thecondecenter.com
46 | august 2018 | www.AtlanticAveMagazine.com