POSTURE THE HIERARCHY TO BODY LANGUAGE

I have been a postural specialist for the last 10 years of my life, it was not until I studied running and its biomechanics did I realise the real importance of posture.  Your posture in running will determine if you get injured or not and ultimately will decide the skill of your running ability.  This made me take a closer look at posture in life in general and what I see in running biomechanics, quite simply spells the same efficiency or inefficiency I see in everyday actions.  Running just emphasis quickly the inefficiency of posture.  Learning this posture then relates to the very foundation of corporate performance.

By looking at running and athletes you will be able to compare the similarities in an office work environment.  For efficient and injury free running symmetry is your ultimate game that allows posture to sit with no asymmetries; in alignment.  Symmetry provides even strength and coordiantion both left and right sides of your body. Therefore we create even balance.  My view on strength is the amount of neural drive, the communication in the nervous system, you have traveling to all your limbs.  In a world of right hand dominance, machines and material objects, and the specificity of sports all have their ability to lesson our sensory feedback by creating dominant movement patterns.  Symmetry is something that all of us lack in today’s modern world. 

For our Athletes at the BFPA running is the benchmark to rehab and performance.  Where specific skills in sport take athletes out of alignment because of the demands of their game, it is imperative that they keep hold the skill of symmetry to allow their foundation to hold them fast when venturing out of the norm. 

So if we are all walking, running, sprinting and greeting people with asymmetries dominating our posture what does this mean?  The biggest effect is that one side of the asymmetry is working a lot harder than the other.  Fatigue is the first outcome, then compensatory measures are made to get a job done, then more fatigue is experienced due to the compensation not being efficient for the task at hand.  Fatigue results in injury, burn out and eventually further down the line disease.

For an athlete this lack of symmetry leads to a journey of always dealing with injury and therefore valuable time is lost training potential.  For the corporate it is the make or break of deals, relationships and management of personal time, which will have a direct effect on the rest of the team (work colleagues) and life outside of work. 

So what does symmetry feel like?  Try brushing your teeth with the hand you never brush your teeth with.  Until this gets to the same skill as your favoured arm/hand then you will acquire symmetry.  Now this is really fine detailed skill and it is something I would like people to start seeing a difference in.  However it will not truly affect the bigger movement patterns greatly.  However in running it is imperative that your left and right leg have the same coordination and strength.  Only one leg holds you up at one time for one leg to the other.  I have found with athletes the quickest way to gain overall strength is to provide the weaker leg with better communication.  The lack of neural drive, coordination is what is effectively holding it back.  You don't like brushing your teeth with your other hand for this very reason, it has very little communication providing a very frustrating action that you give up on.  What is not a fatiguing action for brushing your teeth, is for a leg that is not getting the support of the other leg and will eventually end up with injury. 

How does posture carry over to the corporate world?  Well new energy is found just by acquiring symmetry allowing overall performance to increase daily.  By getting the body more coordinated, to sit in symmetry, which all abilities can benefit from; deals, relationships and management of personal time can all benefit.  The way we meet and greet people is one of my primary concerns with corporate's behaviour.  People make very quick subconscious assumptions through body language, which can seal or break deals.  The way we speak, move and listen is all determined by the strength of posture. 

The quickest way to get symmetry in posture is to learn the techniques we use for our running athletes.  This does not mean run a million miles, quite the opposite.  What it takes into account is the same coordination the nervous system uses for good form running.  Barefoot and adjustable desks are the tools we use to improve skill.  All our training is based on physical intelligence, but we like to call it thinking on your feet.