"Living is an act, and in this act, we all too easily allow our activities to be encumbered and encrusted with habits, with conventions, with all kinds of complicated influences."  

Visit aimingup.com

Past Articles:

Starting at the Top

The Spine as a Compression Spring

We Don't Know Squat

If you would like to be removed from this mailing list, send an e-mail with the word "unsubscribe" to kate.kobak@usa.net

The Way You Think of Yourself
Is the Way You Move Yourself

Most people think that good posture is about holding a shape, and that to correct a slump (or any “bad” posture) you just need to hold yourself in the “correct” position. But posture is about balance, not holding a shape, and it is a direct result of how you think about about your body and the way it moves. You cannot correct a slump if you do not address the body as a whole and understand how different parts relate to each other to either create or release the slump. It is important that you begin to recognize “slump” as a pattern of coordination of your muscles and bones, and not just a “shape” consisting of your shoulders being forward.  

 If you push and pull on yourself you only force yourself into different shapes—but this is what most of us do to ourselves all day long, whether through habitual, unconscious patterns of movement or through conscious attempts to correct “bad” posture.  What we are trying to accomplish with Alexander Technique is not to “do” anything to ourselves, but to “undo” patterns of coordination that take us away from a balanced, neutral state. The goal here is to recognize the unconscious habits we end up in (like slumping) and find ways to catch and inhibit them from occurring so we can instead move from a conscious neutrality. 

In the last newsletter I focused on the head, its considerable weight, and the way it affects your potential freedom of movement.  In this article we will work our way through the neck down to the shoulder girdle and explore the relationship between the weight of the head, the bones and muscles in the shoulder girdle, and the larger muscles in the back. In order to help you really understand how these parts of the body work together, I am going to name all the relevant bones and muscles and describe their structure and function in some detail.  But the most important point to remember throughout our discussion is this:  the way you think of yourself is the way you move yourself; if you want to change habitual patterns of movement and posture, you need to come to a clearer understanding of how the parts of your body work together and in opposition.

Where’s the Shoulder Girdle?

First, let’s skip from the head all the way out to the shoulders. Whenever your head and neck move, your whole shoulder girdle reacts (and vice versa) because it is connected to a lot of the same muscles that are connected to the head. So ask yourself this: Where is your shoulder joint? Take a minute to really think about this question, and point to where you think it is.

You may have pointed to somewhere around your armpit. This is not accurate. Your shoulder joints are further out away from your ribcage, beyond your armpits. The actual joint is around the intersection of your clavicle (collarbone) and shoulder blade, about an inch or two away from your ribcage. It is not connected to the ribcage, though we often think of it that way and try to move as though it was.

Consider your shoulder blades (scapulae). They are triangular bones, with a sort of bony ridge called the acromion running along the top. If you run a hand along the top of one of them you can feel this ridge. Trace it way out to the side towards your arm. Now move that shoulder up and down. You can feel the arm move in the shoulder joint, which is a long way out away from your ribcage. Now put your hand under your armpit, on your ribcage. Look down at that shoulder and remind yourself how far out to the side you traced the ridge of your shoulder blade. Take a minute to let this sink in.

You should notice that your shoulder blades extend beyond the edge of your ribcage and slide freely on top of it to counterbalance the movements of the arms. Because the blades are free to slide over the back of the ribcage they have a wide range of potential movement in following and balancing whatever the arms are doing. If you think of them as being fastened to the back of the ribcage by bony connections it will affect the movement, freedom, and availability of your arms—whether you are serving a tennis ball, reaching up to take something down from a shelf, brushing your teeth, or typing at a computer.

The only place the shoulder girdle is attached to the rest of your skeleton is at the sternoclavicular joint in the front of your chest. Put your hand on one collarbone (clavicle) and shrug that shoulder up and down. Now trace along the clavicle towards your sternum as you continue to move the shoulder. You can feel the movement where your clavicles meet your sternum; this is the sternoclavicular joint.

We often forget that this is a joint, let alone the ONLY joint where your arms and shoulder girdle actually intersect with the rest of your skeleton. Remember: your arms are not attached to the ribcage, but are hung from the farthest edge of the shoulder girdle, which is designed to float above the ribcage, not push down on it. Consider how you think of your shoulder joints and if it differs from this idea. Take the time you need to really accept this and incorporate it into the way you think of your arms and how they move.

Coordinating Muscles And Bones

Now that we have a basic idea of the bony outline of the shoulder girdle we will look a little at how muscles relate to bones, and how your head, neck, and shoulders are all connected. It is important to remember that any movement you make with the arms also involves movements of the scapula and clavicle. So if you notice your shoulder blades jutting out, or if you pull your head really far back and down on your neck, your clavicles will also be displaced away from their neutral resting place. The reason for this is the interconnectedness of all of these bones and several large muscles and muscle groups:

Sternocleidomastoid: On either side of the back of the skull, just behind each ear lobe, is a bump called the mastoid process. The sternocleidomastoid muscle connects to this bump, runs along and around your neck, and ends at the sternum and clavicle in front. Turn your head all the way to the left. Now trace along on the right the connection of this muscle from the bump behind your ear to the sternum and clavicle in the front. If your head is balanced on top of your spine this muscle is able to release to its optimum length and your clavicles are free to float above the ribcage. Now think of a slump. When you slump your head goes back and down on your neck, your sternum gets pushed towards your back, and your clavicles get pulled up on the ends. The float of the shoulder girdle is compromised, and it ends up pushing down on your ribcage rather than gently floating on top of it as it is designed to do. Your shoulders seem narrower and your shoulder blades in back go out, away from their neutral position in which they “hug” your ribcage.

Levator Scapulae: The levator scapulae are muscles that connect on both sides of your 1^st through 4^th cervical vertebrae. They run down the sides of your neck and attach to the inner side of your shoulder blades. So again, consider a slump. Think about the two ends of connection of these muscles. These muscles connect to the neck to the shoulder blades. This is why when your head is back and down in a slump your shoulder blades are displaced. Because the clavicles are connected to the shoulder blades they are affected as well.

Trapezius: The trapezius muscle covers the upper back. It attaches to the base of the skull, the 7^th cervical vertebra, all the thoracic vertebrae, the back of the clavicle and the ridge of the shoulder blade. In other words, this muscle connects your head at the back, your spine in your upper back, your shoulder blades and your clavicles—so overwork or underwork in this muscle can cause changes throughout the spine and shoulder girdle. 

Latissimus Dorsi: The latissimus dorsi covers the lower half of the back. It fans out from the sacrum, connects with the entire lower spine and also attaches to the upper arm. This muscle is amazing. Think about the idea that you have a huge muscle that connects your sacrum at the base of your spine and all your lower vertebrae to your arms—so if you overwork or tense in your arms your lower and middle back will also get pulled on. If you tense in the pectoralis in front and pull your arms into the torso, then this muscle also will pull on your lower and middle back!

Pectoralis: Often we do not move our arms by utilizing the joint that is created by where they intersect with the clavicles and shoulder blades. Instead, we move to reach up high or reach out in front of us by pinching under the arms in a muscle called the pectoralis, which connects the side of the sternum, the bottom of the clavicle, and several ribs on the front side of the torso. This is not necessary and it often causes us to roll our shoulders forward, displace the shoulder blades forward, and result in a “slump.” It also often causes us to pull the weight of our head slightly back and down on our spine.

Putting It All Together

So think about all those connections: the sternocleidomastoid connects the back of your skull with your sternum and clavicle; the levator scapulae connect your neck to your shoulder blades; the trapezius connects your skull, spine, collarbone, and shoulder blades; and the latissimus dorsi connects your sacrum, lower spine, and upper arms.

Now try this: put a hand under your armpit and figure out how to tense up your pectoralis muscle. Maybe even make a tight fist. Notice what goes on with the muscles in your neck and your whole arm when you do this. Now try and move the arm around while you are still tensing in the pec muscle. Now let all that tensing release and move the arm again. You will notice that the whole arm releases, that it becomes easier to move and takes less effort to move it. When we move to reach or stretch by over tensing our pecs it pulls our arms into our rib cage and torso, and results in less stretch or reach than we are potentially capable of.

Again, let’s go back to thinking of a slump. We have detailed the “shape” the bones take on when we are in one. Now fill out your thinking by picturing what goes on with the pectoralis muscle when you slump. It can release away from the sternum and allow the arms to move freely or it can over tense, and cause a chain reaction through the shoulder girdle. When this happens it potentially can pull the arms into the rib cage, pulling the clavicles off their balance on the ribcage and towards the sternum. 

So when you catch yourself rolling your shoulders forward as you slump at the computer, check out what you are doing with those pec muscles, and see what happens if you put a hand under your armpit and remind yourself to let go there as you reach the keys. You will probably notice a corresponding drop of the arms, a slight rolling back of the shoulders and a drop of the shoulder blades. You may even notice that the muscles of your neck or forearms release a little. When you notice your shoulders forward and your posture “slumped,” it is important not to try and correct the problem by pushing the shoulders back.

Try to look at the big picture when you are slumping: your shoulders are forward, your upper back is rounded…chances are you are pinching in those pecs and also slightly pulling your head’s weight back on your spine. This is increasing the slump through the shoulders and spine—and remember your head is heavy so when its weight is back on your spine it pushes the neck forward out of alignment, distorts your ribcage, displaces your floating shoulder girdle and sends your shoulders forward.

This pattern through your upper body can begin with the head’s weight leading the distortion, the pecs overworking, or collapsing through the spine.Whatever came first and led you there doesn’t matter; what does matter is not trying to correct just one part in your effort to achieve “good posture.” Stop pushing and pulling on yourself and thinking of your body as separate parts. Explore your interconnectedness, the way things relate to each other. Look at the big picture. When you notice rolling forward in your shoulders, try to release your armpits and your neck. Allow your head to release at the top of your spine. Remind yourself that the width you want for your shoulders is created in part by releasing the pecs and neck muscles so that the whole shoulder girdle can release out to the sides away from the sternum and spine. So don’t just throw your shoulders back, think instead about how all the muscles and bones coordinate to give you freedom, balance, and mobility.

- Kate Kobak

"To free the neck it is not necessary to do anything in a muscular sense, only to refrain from stiffening it."

- Patrick Macdonald, The Alexander Technique As I See It

"Habit is the thing that gets in the way of change."