Pain is defined by the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) as:


For our purposes here, we will concern ourselves with musculoskeletal pain affecting the lower back, neck, shoulders and hip and having an interconnection with your bodily posture or Postural Pain Syndrome™.

Sources of posture-related pain are numerous and consequential:

• Sitting, standing or lying too long in one position.
• Unawareness of our extremely poor posture while concentrating on our use of computers, laptops, cell phones, video games, books.
• Attempted fitting of our curved body to flat or otherwise poorly designed surfaces such as benches, chairs and beds.
• Neglect /poor conditioning of certain muscle groups.

Examples of our postural violations include the following:

Sitting

• Use of computer while seated in a “C” shape, slumping, and craning neck forward.
• Relaxing in front of the TV in an easy chair or on a couch without proper pelvic positioning and lumbar support.
• Reliance on lumbar support while seated in a car seat or on public transportation.
• Sitting (legs crossed) while using a hand-held device placed at or below table level – and certainly below eye level.

Standing

• Working at a kitchen counter or other work surface which is built too low for the user; having to hunch over to address it.
• Standing in poor postural positions such as barbers and dentists often do.
• Lifting weights which are too heavy or doing so with poor lifting posture.
• Sports like basketball, handball, rugby and others where high performance and asymmetry are a part.

Reclining

• Lying on a couch or other poorly designed surface; the result is thoracic kyphosis (removal of the normal curvature) of the lumbar spine.
• Sleeping on a bed which is too firm and makes no provision for the prominences such as the hip and shoulder; the resultant tendency toward kyphosis, poor spinal alignment and pressure on the hip and shoulder joints and prominences.
• Being “trapped” by fancy soft foam beds, unable to make minor positional adjustments whilst sleeping.
• Use of pillows, bolsters or movable bed frames which place the body into the “C” shaped postural position.
• Use of exercise mats or benches which are flat and to which your (curved) body is forced to conform – often under conditions of heavy weights or vigorous exercise.

SmartPosture™ - Being Smart about Posture™