Many people, whether they are pro athletes, fitness fanatics, gym rats, or health nuts, are looking for "the perfect workout." Some people believe the perfect workout is a HIIT (high intensity interval training). Others believe the CrossFit WOD (workout of the day) is the best. Super Slow wight lifting is some people's choice. Yoga and Pilates will get a lot of votes also. 

Athletes are always looking for ways to become faster, stronger, and more agile. Athletes are also looking for ways to prevent injury, stay pain free, and extend their careers. And these "athletes" I'm talking about are everyone from LeBron James, Tiger Woods, Lionel Messi, and Serena Williams to middle-aged weekend warriors around the world. People will do almost anything to get an "edge." 

What is the psoas? Psoas (pronounced SO-az) is a muscle that gets a lot of attention for playing a role in back pain, hip function, spinal function, and sports performance and is often referred to as "the most important muscle in the body." Quite a claim for a muscle none of us can see and very few people really understand.

Myth 1: Injuries are the result of bad luck. 
Truth: Scientifically there is not such thing as bad luck, thus that can't be the cause of injuries. All injuries are caused by something concrete and with enough investigation the underlying cause can be found and fixed or eliminated, which will help that injury heal faster and more completely and help prevent future injuries. Start your investigation with a free posture evaluation.

A new study published in the journal Arthritis Care & Research wanted to look at the question of whether there is an association between a history of running and symptomatic knee osteoarthritis. The study looked at over 2,600 people with an average age of 64 years old, of which about 30% had run at some point in their lives. The researchers evaluated the relationship of running with knee pain, radiographic osteoarthritis (OA), and symptomatic OA. 

Fitness trainer Nate Helming from The Run Experience made a video where he talks about head and hip position and how it affects your running. Faulty head and hip position will negatively affect your running performance and can lead to injury just as bad shoulder posture does. Nate shares some good knowledge and tips including:

"Good posture is the key to everything" and my head, low and behold, is attached to the rest of my spine." Both are things I've taught every client, Egoscue University student, and Posture Alignment Specialist I've worked with over the last 15 years.

Nate talks about how you should not hold your phone while looking at it and you can clearly see this is terrible posture:

Ever try to screw in a bolt with a hammer? Didn't work well did it?

There's a reason why we have a garage full of different tools - each one is designed for a specific job and works well for that job but not so much for other jobs. A snow shovel works great for clearing your driveway of snow but a rake just won't do the job. That rake, however, is really good at cleaning up leaves off your lawn in the fall and the snow shovel isn't very effective. 

Many people are saying 2016 was a terrible year, maybe the worst ever. I don't think it was...not even close. If 2016 was the worst year ever, it would have to had been worse than:

• 72,000 B.C. - a volcanic super-eruption reduced human population down to less than 10,000
• 1099 - the first Crusade which was the start of the worse human acts ever
• 1348 - the Black Death swept along the Silk Road killing over 1/3 of the people in Europe
• 1520 - smallpox hit the Americas eventually killing 60-90% of the continents' original inhabitants 
• 1914 - WW1 started, death of millions, and widespead economic depression
• 1932 - Holodomor or forced starvation which killed upwards of 5 million
• 1943 - maybe the worst year of WW2 along with race wars in the US

So 2016 might not have been the best year ever, but definitely not the worst. 

Headaches are no fun. Tension headaches can really hurt. Migraine headaches can incapaciate us. But what do headaches have to do with posture?

Headaches can have a lot to do with posture. Headaches, like all pain, are messages from the body. These messages are not usually telling us something is broken, but rather something needs our attention, something is getting overloaded, something is out of alignment, and/or something is missing. ​

Interactive posture analysis of lower body postural alignment.
Anyone who is going through Egoscue University to become a Posture Alignment Specialist (PAS) or Advanced Exercise Therapist (AET), attending The National Posture Institute to become a Certified Posture Specialist (CPS), taking classes at the American Posture Institute to become a Certified Posture Expert (CPE), anyone wanting to become a Certified Posture Exercise Professional (CPEP) from PostureZone.com, or someone attending the Posture Restoration Institute with the goal of being Posture Restoration Certified (PRC) needs to understand posture. Anyone doing postural alignment analysis needs to understand what good, correct, or ideal posture looks like, what common posture imbalances are, and what causes those posture imbalances. 
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Oregon Exercise Therapy is happy to help you in your posture knowledge and application by offering  interactive posture analysis of different areas of the body. 

Look at the person below and evaluate his posture. Put your answers to the following questions in the comments section below this post to start a discussion about this posture and how it is affecting this client. 

What jumps out to you? What is not in good/ideal alignment? 

How would this posture affect his movement, function, and performance? 

What injuries might this person be susceptible to based on his misalignments?

​What do you think caused these misalignments?

What would you have this person do to correct his posture?

Related articles/videos:
Children's postural alignment
Benefits of postural alignment therapy
Orthopedic doctor and postural alignment specialist discuss osteoarthritis
The chicken or the egg in pain and posture