In my last article I talked about gravity and posture. Poor physical control of gravity leads to postural faults and stress. The condition here is more from muscle overwork and lack of stretching. Here are the directions to identify and correct a common condition. Stand in front of a full length mirror with your arms hanging comfortably at your side. When you look at your hands in the mirror you should not see the back side of your hand. You should see the thumb and the side of the index finger and a space between them with no other fingers appearing in the space. See what you see and mentally take note. If you see the back of your hand or fingers in the space between the thumb and index finger then there is room for improvement. To correct this, go to an open doorway. Place the side of your forearm on the inside of the door frame with the elbow at shoulder level. Now step forward with the leg of the same side a good foot or more. Bring the hip of this side forward putting a stretch into the upper chest of the same side. You will feel a pull in the chest up to the top of your arm in the shoulder joint. Get a good stretch here but not to the point of pain but sensation yes. You can raise the elbow a couple inches up or down on the door frame and do the stretch again. Do this same stretch on the other arm by repositioning your body in the door frame and repeat the stretches here. Next after these stretches pull your shoulder together on your back as much as possible. You can then relax the pull and do it again if you like, even several times. This lightly strengthens the muscles between the shoulder blades. These muscles are called the rhomboids. The middle trapezius muscles also get worked.
We are almost done. Return to the mirror and look to see if what I described as the ideal is closer to What I described. You can repeat this stretch daily till you get improvement. If you do not achieve perfect results there are other postural faults that can be worked by yourself or with my help. Happy New Year.
Sincerely,
Dr. Mike Spearman
Spearman Better Health Center
