Why It’s Absolutely Important for You to Assess Your Own Posture

As a posture professional, I get tons of questions whenever I communicate with others. One of the primary questions I’ve continually received over the years is why it’s important to assess posture. Why do this? Why is it so important to assess your own posture? The easiest way to respond to this question is to think of it like your overall health. The sooner you realize your health status the more control you have over any future problems.

There are millions of people who suffer from all forms of pain. If I conducted a survey, I can almost guarantee that many will indicate they are currently suffering from pain in their neck, lower back, and wrist, just to name a few.

These problem areas can be treated if the right methods are used, but before treatment we must strive for proper care and prevention.

Think about a common cold. At this point, you probably have a solid idea about the causes of a common cold. You know when you don’t feel well, and you know the seasons, places, and activities you need to do to avoid getting sick and if you do get sick you know how to treat it. It would be truly amazing if we all had a better grasp of our posture and body alignment the same way we did over the common cold. We would know what to avoid doing and how to best treat any pain problems. In case the common cold example feels far-reaching, let’s think about a common posture related problem. 

Do you suffer from lower back pain?

Are you aware that sitting for long periods, exercising in poor form, and a host of other activities contribute to this problem? Some of you reading this message don’t experience lower back pain and know people that don’t care about it. To those that don’t care because they haven’t experienced any problems, it’s never too late for something to happen. You could experience your first tinge of pain and discomfort the next time you twist or bend in poor alignment.

There are people who live with mild discomfort and wave it off as nothing because they’ve grown accustomed to the way it feels. The problem here is they don’t realize how serious this is until the problem gets worse. Many tend to deal with posture the way they deal with most forms of illness. They invest more time fixing the problem as opposed to preventing the reasons for its development.

I’m imploring you to take action. For you and for your clients, like the common cold, you need to get a firm handle on posture related problems and how to identify them before there’s a serious problem. This is why you must assess posture and have your posture assessed at some point. It’s great to know possible problem areas before something gets serious. You might have tight muscles, overstretched ligaments, and other problems waiting to surface at the worst possible time in your life.

Get assessed, learn to assess, and then assess others

Think of your posture as you would your health status, you shouldn’t go the next 5 years without some knowledge of how you’re doing. As a professional working with clients, you have a right to understand your own problem areas and urge your clients to learn theirs. They’ll be grateful knowing that you’re concerned about them. If you’re educated on this subject and can assess their posture for them, they’ll also take comfort in knowing you’re the go-to expert in this area.

While we’re on this subject, I want to offer something that will help make the assessment process a little easier. The National Posture Institute supports the use of posture grids. It’s helpful for you and your client to visually see misalignments and possible problem areas on the body.

Check out our posture grids here

Remember, you can be the change; you can be the go-to expert. These posture grids aren’t the end-all, but they’ll help you with your journey toward helping others attain better alignment.