“Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”– World Health Organisation. We are all busy bees , rushing round from A to B and harnessing the monkey mind. Everyone you meet is busy, busy, busy and as a result of moving faster and faster, we go forwards and forwards with our posture. We are all on are cell phones, iPads etc etc
Major Betrand DeJarnette, a famous chiropractor developed the concept of RC factor . R stands for resistance, and C stands for contraction . Dejarnette showed, rightly, that whatever co contraction occurs (concentric) on one side of a joint, there must be equal and relatively opposing resistance in the antagonists for stabilisation of that, or any joint to occur.
So our posture depicts the functionality of whats called the RC factor. As an instructor i don’t want to over expose clients to exercises that don’t require the body to generate balanced RC responses. Examples of such exercises would be crunches, because of the nature of the environment, such exercise require contraction, yet, due to externally applied stability from the floor, the need for resistance is reduced in proportion to the external stability provided. Such exercises have very little carry over into a functional environment. So in a nutshell the result is instability of any working joint or kinetic chain and ineffective transmission of both muscular forces and kinetic energy. Look at the pictures above, the eyes will always find the horizon, but look how the neck compensates. The RC factor will also probably increase dental work and orthodontics due to incorrect jaw neck relation plus poor eye sight that may be an effect due to constant strain.
Are you still teaching crunches? or a raised head from the floor, do your clients or yourself complain of neck pain or headaches ? There are lots of alternatives that you can give in both Pilates, Movement and Yoga so that the body is working with space and not compression. This is not to say that they are wrong, just not right for that body at this present moment. According to the Levitt system the cervicle and lumbar spine work together, so when we are over mobilising or have problems in the cervicle it will correspond with the lumbar and vice versa.
Krishnamacharya states “Adapt to the individual”, we need to look how we can activate the body and correct forward head posture by using alternative planes of movement and alternative standing positions. Osteopath Guy Voyeur talks about releasing and stretching “Le Blanc Fascia”. I have done this at Rugby League – bringing the head back and slightly tucking it in, i also teach this on the Reformer without raising the head rest by training the full chain and creating length in the body.
This will of course depend on the severity of the forward head and raise the question head rest up or down?
