Mobility Blog Part 3-Why It's Important To Maintain Alignment And Not Just Balance After An Injury And As You Age
Improper body alignment increases your risk of falling, weakens the body's core muscles and negatively impacts the alignment and stability of your weight-bearing joints and spine. To stay upright with strong core muscles as you age you need to drive your body the way you drive your car. Head upright and aligned and centered over your shoulders with your line of sight towards the ground ahead of you and not down at or just in front of your feet. You can eat the best food and have the best healthcare, but If you walk looking towards or just in front of your feet. Or you walk with the top of the inside of your arm or arms extended away from your side the way traditional canes, crutches, walking sticks and walkers force your arms and spine to be aligned, moved and positioned in order to maintain balance your head will stop being aligned and centered over your shoulders. Your walking stride will become too small and too unstable for your feet to contact the ground from heel to toe and engage the core muscles around the top of your spine, shoulder blades and chest that keep your body upright and stable when walking
Try walking across the room with your head down and your line of sight towards or just in front of your feet. Feel how the core muscles around the top of your spine, shoulder blades and chest stop engaging when you walk. Notice how your head is no longer aligned and centered over your shoulders and becomes positioned in front of the rest of your body. That your visual field and walking stride become smaller. When you look down towards or in front of your feet as you walk not only does your spine lose alignment, but your feet are unable to contact the ground from heel to toe. Your arms stop swinging forward and backward stabilizing your body and keeping your weight evenly distributed over and on your weight-bearing joints and feet and becomes distributed more on the front of them reducing your balance and making you less stable.
Walk across the room or down the street and keep your head up, aligned and centered over your shoulders with your line of sight towards the ground ahead of you, the way your drive a car or ride a bike. Notice that your body is more stable, your arms can swing forward and backward helping to steer and stabilize your body as you walk and turn. How your walking stride becomes big enough for your feet to contact the ground from heel to toe. You can feel the core muscles around the top of your spine, under your shoulder blades and on the front of your chest engaging and that your visual field is large enough to give you enough time to stop or step around anything that you might otherwise trip over causing you to fall. The only time you should look down when walking is when you're on the stairs, the dark, a wet or slippery surface, sitting down or standing up or making a transition from one surface height to another.
When you maintain alignment of your weight-bearing joints and spine as you walk you are able to regain upright posture, balance, stability and strong core muscles at any age and after an injury. Procedural memory is a form of muscle memory from which the neural pathways in our brain that make motor behavior automatic are formed. When movement is restricted, changed or altered for a continuous length of time without interruption the neural pathways that make motor behavior automatic are changed. To quote Dr. Davis, an orthopedic surgeon, "Use it or lose it." In other words, practice, good or bad makes permanent. You are the way you walk! If you walk looking down at or in front of your feet or with the top of your arms extended away from your side you will maintain balance, but at the expense of the alignment of your spine, weight-bearing joints and the strength of your body's core muscles. You will become more and more bent over and unstable with time because your body is not being used to stay aligned, moved and positioned to stay upright with strong core muscles.
Older people who do Tai Chi, Qigong, martial arts, yoga, ballroom dancing and swim maintain coordinated, balanced, upright movement as they age. They fall less and recover faster from injuries and have better long-term outcomes. It's not a special diet or their genes or the few hours a week that they exercise that allows them to stay upright with strong core muscles into their 90's and beyond. It's how they think about and execute movement all day every day that maintains their coordinated, balanced, upright movement as they age.
Watch the video below of 99 year old Dinkie Flowers who is now 103 years old and still upright because of how she moves and the way she moves all day every day.
https://youtu.be/v60FkXqHcQY?si=acAy4uTAtFCaTU7n