Is posture correction real

As a rehabilitation practitioner who has handled nearly a thousand cases of high and low shoulders, rounded shoulders, and anterior pelvic tilt, I can clearly say that posture correction is of course true, but it is neither a magic trick that can cure all diseases as marketed, nor is it a pure IQ tax that many people complain about. Whether the effect is good or not depends entirely on what you adjust, what method you use, and whether you keep up with daily maintenance.

The sophomore girl I just picked up last week was writing a paper on the small table on the bed in Tiantianwo dormitory. The shoulder height difference was almost 3 centimeters. Her neck was bent forward so much that it was almost touching the computer screen. Her shoulders and neck hurt every time she sat for half an hour. I took a X-ray to rule out organic cervical disease, which is an imbalance of muscle tension caused by sitting crookedly for a long time. The upper trapezius muscle was as hard as a rock, and the lower trapezius and serratus anterior muscles were so weak that they could not use force. We loosened her tense muscles, taught her a few strengthening exercises that she could practice at home, and asked her to adjust the height of her elbows on the desk to be level with the tabletop. When she came back for a follow-up visit in 20 days, her shoulders were basically level, and her shoulder pain was 80% better. The correction of functional postural problems caused by this bad habit is essentially to bring the unbalanced muscle tension back to balance and adjust the misaligned joints back to normal alignment. This is the same principle as wearing deformed shoes and using shoe stretches to push them back to their original shape. The effect is real.

Of course, it’s no wonder that many people think it’s a scam. I’ve seen too many wild organizations that boast about body posture correction, and I dare to claim any outrageous effects. A month ago, a girl came to me crying, saying that she had been deceived by an Internet celebrity studio, saying that her XO-shaped legs could be straightened by pressing the bones. She paid 8,000 yuan to press them for a month. Her knees hurt so much that she had to struggle to go up and down stairs. The XO film showed that she had a soft tissue contusion. Her genu varum is bony. The epiphyses have long been closed in adulthood, and the shape of the bones has been determined. It is impossible to change the shape of the bones just by pressing the muscles with external force. The only way to improve it is through surgery. There are many exaggerated and publicized cases of cutting leeks, so everyone will naturally be biased against posture correction. There are also those who say that adjusting your posture can cure lumbar protrusion and make you 3 centimeters taller. They are purely charging IQ tax. If they really have this ability, why would they need an orthopedic surgeon?

Many people also complain that correction is ineffective. In fact, the problem may not lie with correction itself. I had an old client who was a programmer. After a month of adjustment, his anterior pelvic tilt was basically back to normal, and his waist was no longer sore after sitting for a long time. However, after returning home, he slumped on the sofa every day to watch TV dramas with a thick pillow under his waist. Within half a month, he returned to his original shape. He came to me and shouted, "Your correction is useless." I couldn't laugh or cry. Posture problems are the result of bad habits accumulated over several years or even more than ten years. You take a correction class once a week, and for the remaining six days you have to cross your legs, lower your head, and use your phone for three hours. No matter how good the correction is, you can't handle it.

To put it bluntly, posture correction is more like long-term maintenance of the body. There is no one-time solution. If you go in with the expectation that "spending money once will make you straighter and more beautiful, and cure all kinds of diseases", you will most likely fall into a trap; but if you can face up to its scope of action, find a professional to evaluate whether it is a functional or bone problem, and be willing to change those bad habits after adjustments, it can really solve many problems, and you won't be able to kill them all if you make the mistake.