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:

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

Stand up, step in place several times, and then stop and look down at your feet.

• What direction are they pointing?
• Is one foot turned out more than the other foot?
• Is one foot in front of the other foot?
• Close your eyes and feel the weight distrobution in your feet; are you putting more weight in one foot than the other foot? 

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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What can looking at someone's posture tell us about their movement, function, and chance of injury?

Look at the picture below and think about how this person's posture is going to affect her life. 

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. 

From this picture can you predict with any certainty what the rest of her posture looks like?

If yes, what do you predict and why?

If no, why not?

What injuries might she be susceptible to based on what you see of her posture in this photo? Why?

What would you have this client do to improve her posture and why?

Related articles/videos:
10 design perfections in the human body
Bad posture equals bad form
Stop youth sports injuries
You don't have to play the blues

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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Let's do a little interactive posture analysis. Put your answers to these questions in the comments section below this post to start a discussion about this posture and how it is affecting this client. 

Take a look at this clients posture in the photo below. What do you notice? What's out of good postural alignment? 

How could this misalignment affect his movement, function, and performance?

Does his posture increase his chance of certain injuries? Which ones and why? 

​What would you have this client do to improve his posture and restore good alignment?

Related articles/videos:
Posture, alignment, and vertical load
8 laws of physical health
Benefits of good posture
The power of the tower

Cupping is an ancient Chinese technique that athletes say helps relieve muscle soreness and speed recovery by increasing blood flow. Cupping often causes bruising as seen on many Olympic athletes including U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps, U.S. 400 meter runner LaShawn Merritt, U.S. gymnast Alex Naddour,  celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Aniston, Justin Bieber and Samuel L. Jackson. ​

But does cupping really work?

If you watched the U.S. Swimming Olympic Team Trials recently you've seen some amazing swimming by both veteran swimmers and lots of new up-and-coming swimmers. If you're like me, you also noticed some terrible postures. Here are some of the main questions people have about swimmer's postures:

1. Why do swimmer's tend to have the same type of posture?
2. What causes these posture imbalances?
3. Doesn't this posture help them swim faster?
4. What can swimmers do to improve their posture?

A yoga practice can be wonderful both physically and mentally, but only if your body is capable of performing the poses. Many people, because of our sedentary lifestyle, are taking a body that is imbalanced posturally and incapable of performing many of the poses correctly. This not only makes yoga difficult and not enjoyable, but can lead to injury and chronic pain issues. The video below takes you through a series of pre-yoga and post-yoga sequences that are designed to balance your body's posture, restore function, and prepare your body for the demands of yoga. 

If you regularly practice yoga, at home or at a yoga studio, do this routine daily for the next week and see how it changes your yoga practice and how you feel all day long. 

Comment below and let me know how it went and what changes you felt. 

I recently received the Oregon Health & Science University spring magazine in the mail and when flipping through it saw in the Question & Answer section this question:

Let's examine what is said here and what part is true and what part is not true and how you can figure out the best course of action to become pain free.