Being a Massage Therapist in a very busy city like Calgary for the past 11 years, I have spent many hours deep into the tissues of thousands of clients. Over 15 000 sessions have led to many realizations and understandings about how the body carries tension, how it becomes posturally distorted, and what tends to keep the musculoskeletal system from finding a state of balance that allows for movement free of pain and restriction.

There are many factors that lead to pain and discomfort. One obvious cause, and one that everyone attempts to manage, is stress. We all have it. We find ways to adapt, deal with or just plain avoid stress! Whether it is psychological or physical, stress finds its way into our lives from many sources. I mention stress because it affects everything else. Every contributor to postural imbalance is only made worse by stress.

The greatest factor affecting peoples predominant posture, which impacts how we move, feel, and cope with everything, is completely tied to habitual postures. Sounds vague? Let me narrow it down to the three habitual patterns which affect your postural reality the most.

Everything you do each day is done sitting, standing, or sleeping!

Your unique way of doing each of these things, has the greatest impact on what your postural reality is. The accidents, sports injuries, broken limbs, nor your genetics are nearly as impactful as the three things you spend the most time doing. Is there an hour in the day that you are not doing one of those three things? How do you sit throughout the day? How do you stand? What body position is held most throughout the sleeping hours each night?

Many of my massage therapy clients have office jobs that require them to maintain a seated position anywhere from 4-8 hours every day! This may not appear to be significant, but lets look a little closer. Lets take the lesser of the two and do some basic math: 4 hours a day, 20 hours a week, and 80 hours a month, equals over 900 hours a year holding a seated position. Of course, that’s only at work! There is the time spent seated in the car, on the couch, at the kitchen table, or at the coffee shop. Obviously we could double that 900 hours a year and still not account for all the time spent in this posturally challenging position!

The Psoas and Rectus Femoris muscles are our primary hip flexors. They are held in a significantly shortened position while we sit for long periods. The major one is the Psoas, which attaches on the anterolateral aspect of our lumbar spine. It follows downward to attach to our thigh bone, the femur. Holding a seated posture for many hours a day trains this muscle to be a shorter muscle. The problems of low back pain and discomfort begin when we try to stand after long periods of sitting. The Psoas’ attempts to maintain the shortened length cause it to pull the lumbar spine forward toward the femur. The low back tends to tighten or even spasm to prevent this forward pull. Over long periods of time the result is chronic back pain.

Having your knees bent at 90 degrees, for countless yearly hours of sitting, also tends to lead to incredibly tight hamstrings! No wonder as we age it gets to harder to touch our toes! Sitting is also hardly kind to our neck and shoulders.

Massage therapy is often used to address the muscular imbalances developed from having your hands on a mouse or keyboard. Your head progressively leans forward to get a closer look at your monitor throughout the day. Throw in a few variables such as the tendency to lean on one butt cheek more than the other, not using a head set, and always mousing with the same hand, and it becomes clear the very act of sitting creates many of the postural distortions which massage therapy address every day.

The second most habitual posture we have and maintain is our standing posture. We don’t think too much of it but each of us, has a stance that is uniquely our own. When we bring conscious awareness to our body while standing, we can begin to see and feel how certain muscles are contributing to one our most dominantly held postures.

Simply glancing down at your feet periodically, without adjusting yourself to some ideal pose, reveals what is likely a reoccurring theme. Are your feet consistently in a similar position every time you look down? Is one always out in front? Is one always rotated in the same direction? These consistencies reveal muscular holding patterns that are having their way with your skeletal structure. You may notice the bodies desire to shift weight more to one side. This too relates to certain muscle being held in more contracted states, than their opposites. Massage therapy looks to reveal the imbalances within our muscle groups and restore it.

Every muscle in the body has an exact opposite muscle which performs an opposite function. One may flex, while the other extends. Muscles balanced in length, strength, and flexibility with their opposites, work together to provide fluid, pain free, dynamic movement, and function.

Massage Therapists’ assist in revealing our habitual patterns that contribute to the postural distortions. By introducing opposition to our habitual postures, we can begin to bring awareness to the balance that lies between the two. Here, freedom from our discomfort and postural strain awaits us. Unfortunately, sleep is not an escape from postural strain.

Sleep is a very habitual act as well. Do you tend to sleep on the same side of the bed every night? Would you or your partner be keen to switch side of the bed? Likely not. Why? Because we are habitual beings. We do things quite habitually, and we move in habitual ways. Even our sleep is done in a very habitual way. Some people sleep on their tummy side every night. Their habit, has them rotating their neck to one side more than the other while being laterally bent to rest on a pillow, for many hours a night.

Side sleepers have their own unique way too. Most sleep predominately on one side. One shoulder gets compressed against the mattress. The legs are rarely held in the exact same position. One may be straight, while the other is flexed at both the hip and the knee. Again these are habitual postures that are held for many hours a night. How do you think your long held sleeping postures, are affecting you standing posture? Your standing posture has been greatly influenced by the sleeping posture you maintained for 6-8 hours last night! Our body want to move into positions that it spends the most amount of time in. Our own sense of what normal standing posture should be, fights against it. Our muscular systems are unconsciously trained to meet the demands of our most dominantly held postures. These are usually in conflict with our perception of what is considered “good posture”.

Massage therapy focuses intently on those muscles holding you in out-of-balance postures. Once these muscles are released of tension, your body enjoys the experience of a more fluid and pain-free range of motion. If you can move daily into positions and ranges which oppose your habitual patterns, you are encouraging a state of balance. With a little help from your massage therapist, you will discover more about your body and how your habitual postures become your unconscious postures. Through the massage therapy process you will encounter new postures thereby helping to bring conscious awareness and balance to your body.