How important is good posture for our health? The answer is: very!

Around every joint in the body there are several muscles which have their own different roles to play.

Muscles cross joints, that’s how a skeleton moves. Some muscles cross 2 joints and make big movements in the body, for example your quadriceps muscles on the front of the thigh cross both the hip joint and the knee, allowing you to lift your thigh and kick your knee when the quads contract.

The big muscles of the back, the Erector Spinae, cross over several joints in the spine. There are 25 joints in the spinal column and the Erector Spinae basket weaves across them, allowing us to straighten up, turn and twist and bend backwards when these muscles contract.

Wherever there is a joint in the body, muscles cross over that joint to facilitate movement. When a muscles contracts, movement occurs and muscles are in a state of mild contraction all the time. This is called muscle tone, our muscles are in a constant state of readiness for the command from the brain for movement.

So, what about these postural muscles? Around every joint, besides our movement muscles, there are smaller, deeper muscles which just cross 1 joint and have the job of steadying the joint against the force of a movement.

We can all understand this simple bit of physics: think of a gate swinging on a gate post, if the gate post is made of bendy rubber and keeps swaying around then the movement of the gate will be impaired.

Maybe the gate won’t move at all. If the gate post is firm and stable then the gate can swing strongly. Our postural muscles have the job of steadying us so that our limbs can move without damage to the spine.

That’s the theory anyway! Our body is made for movement. If we are moving and active throughout our day, reaching, pulling, pushing, turning twisting, bending, our postural muscles can respond to the forces we apply to them and we have good chance of maintaining health. But our contemporary lifestyles mean we can’t always do this , eventually we get the aches and pains associated with poor posture.

Our postural muscles need to be reminded what it feels like to function! One of the most significant of these is the pelvic floor group. The pelvic floor lines the inside of the base of the pelvis. When contracted it feels like pulling up the sex organs (men and women…it’s the same!). When the pelvic floor contracts the brain also sends a message to the deep spinal muscles which support your spine, like a conference call in the body.

Sit down and try contracting your pelvic floor to a moderate level. Hold the contraction for a slow count of 10. At the same time let your spine grow taller. Breath. Don’t strain. Aim to make this an easy thing to do. You are on your way to better posture.

- Patricia Issitt is a movement therapist and pilates instructor based in York. Find out more at yorkpilates.com