Risk Factors and Microbreaks

So neutral posture is the position of the body that allows the most support with the least amount of muscle engagement. So our skeleton is formed a certain way the bones are stacked on top of each other a certain way to give us stability and resist gravity. I think a lot of us discount gravity. We forget about it because it's always with us, but it's a force that is constantly pulling us down and we whether we know it or not, are constantly fighting against that. So we want to use the strength of our skeletal system to hold us up. And here I'm standing in neutral posture, if I were to stand like this for a long time, I would be able to because my bones don't fatigue like my soft tissue does. So if you're evaluating, your own posture, or maybe someone else's, it's really easy to see it from the side. So the ear should be aligned with the shoulder that should be aligned with the hip, and then that should be aligned with the foot, if you're standing. So I should be able to place a yardstick up to you and it would hit your ear, shoulder, hip, and foot all at the same time. If you're sitting and I'll show some pictures of that and a little bit, the concept is the same. You want the ear in line with the shoulder and hip and then both feet flat on the floor.

What happens is when we start to deviate from neutral posture is then the power of our skeleton is taken away. Our bones aren't holding us up anymore. It's our soft tissue. So if I'm out here in chicken wing, my bones are not holding me up. My soft tissue is. So it's not only holding this fixed static posture, it's also fighting against gravity. And then if we add in that we're drilling something or scaling something that's even more stress for that area. So we really want to try to practice in neutral posture as much as we can.