What does good posture look like? Many would say it’s sitting ramrod straight, shoulders back, head up, and that bad posture is a teenager’s slumped shoulders, curved back, eyes glued to their screen below. But the reality is much more complicated than that.
Posture, or spinal posture, is the position of the spine in the human body; your spine is made up of 33 vertebrae, stacked on top of each other to form a curved line. The natural curve of the spine is such that you will have a slight forwards curve near the top and an opposite curve near the bottom. If seen from the front or back, then the spine should be in a straight line, and a deviation from this is scoliosis. And when seen from the side, excessive curvature in the spine is called kyphosis (curving excessively forwards at the top), or lordosis (curving excessively backwards at the bottom).
It’s been instilled in us by parents and health and safety guidelines that sitting or standing up straight is the way to prevent back pain. However, the evidence linking lower back pain and posture is fairly weak, and there isn’t one agreed ‘correct’ posture.
A study conducted on 295 physiotherapists in Europe, asked them to choose what they thought was the best sitting posture (which ranged from slumped to sitting upright) and to complete the back belief’s questionnaire (which has the wonderful acronym BBQ). 85% of physiotherapists picked one of two postures as the best, but the two that were chosen were very different from each other. One of them had less of a curve at the bottom, and a straighter upper back. The physiotherapists’ beliefs on the link between lower back pain and posture also varied considerably.
This study did suggest that ‘sitting postures which matched the natural shape of the spine and appeared comfortable and/or relaxed without excessive muscle tone were often deemed advantageous’. So far, research has shown that posture and the way we use our spine has little to no relationship with developing back pain. Sitting could exacerbate back pain that is already present, and pain might lead to different posture, but posture itself doesn’t cause pain. Another study found that there are many factors that lead to lower back pain, including anxiety and lack of sleep. Similarly, stress can make muscles tense and sore.
When it comes to lifting heavy things, there is also a belief that the spine could be easily damaged. In reality, your spine is very strong, and can handle quite a bit of weight. As with any exercise, this has to be done little by little; you wouldn’t run a marathon without any training, so you shouldn’t try to squat for the first time with twice your body weight either. Sitting and standing completely straight all the time wasn’t what we were built for. Your vertebrae allow you a huge range of motion (just try and move your spine around and see how many directions it can go). If we had been built to never move our backs, we wouldn’t have then vertebrae. So, enjoy the freedom to move that it gives you!
