Cell phone necks, hollow back & Co. usually get worse from home office. Let's take this Bad posture even with us in sport, exercise harms us more than it helps. Anatomy expert Lilla Wuttich explains what we can do.
Sometimes you see people jogging and just looking at them thinks: Ouch …!
LILLA WUTTICH: Yes, when I see people doing their laps, my first thought is often: Better leave it. You are damaging your body if you run with your knees turned inward and your back arched.
How did that happen?
Sitting a lot in everyday life and not using our muscles leads to posture problems such as a hunched back, hollow back, hip extension deficit, knock knees or shoulder pulling when lifting arms. And working in the home office often increases it even more! We take these bad postures with us from everyday life into our training: into yoga, workouts in the fitness studio and even running. There is a lot of talk about not moving enough. Right! But we also need to talk about how we move so that it is good for us.
And we don't notice ourselves when we go around crooked and crooked?
Exactly: Because we are strongly anchored in our inner life, our patterns and the wrong posture feels normal to us. Our body feeling constantly deceives us. It is often pleasant to be in your usual walking posture, yoga position or squat. However, pleasant does not mean that the posture is correct, it just means that I've got used to it. Many people try to compensate for their bad posture with two or three workouts per week. How you behave throughout the day cannot be compensated for with an hour of exercise.
Often the trainers in yoga classes or fitness courses do not correct their participants at all …
How is a trainer supposed to take care of a group of 20 people at the same time? All that remains for us is to take on more responsibility for ourselves. And that sometimes means going back first and learning how to move correctly in terms of the body.
How harmful is it if I get an exercise wrong?
Every movement sets a movement track in our body, in the joints, in the muscles, in the brain. And every movement that I perform incorrectly sets a wrong movement track. One wrong move is not a problem. But if we do that all the time, sitting crookedly at the desk over and over again, practicing the sun salutation with a hollow back or the knee bend with bent leg axes, then the damage adds up.
How do I know that I have to change something if I don't notice it?
Most change processes are unfortunately only initiated when you are in pain and the suffering is great enough. The good news: joint pain is often functional, that is, nothing is broken, but muscles, tendons, ligaments, fasciae and nerves no longer work together properly. This is where anatomically correct movement helps us: It causes the body to develop unbelievable forces and to heal itself – because the body relearns coordination and the joint is thereby relieved. That alone can lead to the symptoms subsiding and we feel better.
Sounds great. But how do I do that?
A central point is the straightening of the pelvis. With a correctly straightened spine, gravity helps me, I don't have to fight it. What you should see from the outside is an elongated, light and homogeneous inner curve in the lumbar spine area, from the sacrum to the middle of the thoracic spine. If you have this, you can assume that the area above it, i.e. the neck and cervical spine, is in good condition. Correct pelvic straightening also has a downward effect on the statics of the leg axes and feet. A hollow back, on the other hand, inevitably bends it inward. This means that knee and hip problems are virtually inevitable.
Are there attitudes that do more harm than good?
There is no exercise that is fundamentally prohibited from doing. The question is rather: Is my body suitable for this, am I sufficiently trained? I usually advise against the headstand and the plow when doing yoga, because most of the cervical spine are overwhelmed with it because the neck muscles are too weak and the cervical spine is bent too much inward. Similar to the shoulder stand, but there are variations, for example just prop your pelvis up or put a blanket under your upper back. What is problematic with women and what I often observe: a hollow back in the warrior postures and in the triangle. And knees that turn inward for fitness and running.
Do injuries also arise because you want more and more out of a false ambition and go deeper into the asanas in yoga?
Yes, it is much more important to see what your own body is like and what it needs, and to find the right balance between elasticity and strength. Agile women often go far too deep in the stretching positions; they actually need more strength to stabilize their joints. My experience shows: If you have been practicing yoga for a while, the development between elasticity and strength is no longer synchronized. One becomes more agile and the strength cannot keep up. The increase in strength is no longer sufficient for what a complex asana requires. You would also have to do proper strength training, for example with thera bands or dumbbells.
So yoga alone is not enough to be really fit?
No, and the cardiovascular system is not really trained, you can't make a sun salutation that fast. Yoga cannot do everything, our body needs more. For example, I also do crossfit. This is where we lift weights, and doing the movements correctly is just as important. The moment I move, the quality decides whether the movement is good or bad for me.
What can we do ourselves to improve this?
It helps to know what a species-appropriate movement should look like, according to the body's instructions for use. We know so much about healthy eating, why not about exercise? We can learn this, for example, in a spiral dynamics workshop, with a physiotherapist or an anatomically well-trained personal trainer. There are also books, for example "Look At Yourself" by Christian Larsen, with illustrations of what an attitude should look like and what it actually often looks like. This helps to train the eye and to become sensitive to yourself.
Lilla Wuttich works as a physiotherapist and yoga teacher, offers anatomy workshops and trains in spiral dynamics – a therapy concept to use the body in an anatomically intelligent way (lillawuttich.de).
Have you checked your posture today?
1 Stand in front of a mirror and straighten your feet so that the second toe is pointing straight ahead.
2 Place your fingertips on the pelvic crests and check that your pelvis is straight.
3 Are the kneecaps facing forward – or are they turned in or out?
4th Bend your knees and check whether the middle of the kneecap slides over the second toe.
5 Look at yourself from the side: Are the curves of the spine so pronounced that the body is plumb and does not have to work against gravity? Or do you have a hollow back or a rounded back? Are the shoulders widened to the side without pulling up?
Would you like to read more about the topic and exchange ideas with other women? Then take a look at the "Health Forum" BRIGITTE community past!
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