In last week’s Homberg Chiropractic blog, we addressed poor posture and overall back pain. But did you know poor posture also leads to low back pain?

The impact of gravity on our bodies cannot be overlooked. Nothing on earth escapes gravity’s powerful, constant force. When the body is in balance, when the head is aligned over the spine and the spine is aligned over the pelvis, legs, and feet, the force of gravity does not pull the body toward the earth. The body relaxes in a state of balance.

When the body starts to slump, the state of balance is disrupted and this is what is known as postural distortion. For example, when the head chronically moves forward (think about looking at your phones), the muscles of the neck and back are forced to contract to counteract the pull of gravity on the head. The head becomes a weight that your back muscles have to hold up all day long.

Postural distortion also occurs when there is a torsion in the pelvic area. This means the area is twisted slightly off center. This causes the muscles in the waist and lower back to contract. If the torsion is left uncorrected, the contraction will persist eventually fatiguing the muscle, causing low blood flow and producing lower back pain.

Postural distortions exert harmful mechanical, neurological, chemical, muscular and gravitational stresses on your spine and joints. When your body’s structures are tilting off their horizontal axis or leaning away from their vertical relationships to gravity, your joint components become both compressed and closely packed, and stretched open in relation to their neutral operating positions. Under these circumstances your joint surfaces grind and chafe; ligaments, tendons and muscles wear and weaken; muscles deactivate, contract and stiffen, while others loosen and atrophy. This eventually leads to inflammation, pain and arthritic degeneration.

At Homberg Chiropractic, we see postural distortions quite frequently. With adjustments as well as rehabilitation exercises both in the office and at home, we can correct your pelvis area and spinal tilting.