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What Your Body's All About

Forget BMWs and Porsches. If you want to see a really beautifully designed machine, look in the mirror. There isn't anything like the human body for efficient movement combined with stability. You've got an ingenious skeletal system that provides structure and a musculature system that provides the strength for you to move it around. The body is both simple and complex, like any exceptionally creative work of art.

And yet what I hear most from a new client is that his or her body doesn't work. A young, active man will tell me that when he lifts weights, his shoulder hurts. A middle-aged, healthy woman is upset that she can work in her garden for only a short time before her back begins to ache. An older man can't figure out why his knees bother him after simply walking down the stairs at home.

They know something's wrong, they are very frustrated that they have no answers, and they want to feel good again so they can remain active.

Some clients assume their discomfort is caused by stress, others by the fact that they're getting older. Some are convinced that a recent event, such as moving their sofa when the rug was being cleaned, is the reason they're in pain.

I explain that these conditions can of course contribute to discomfort or pain. Accidents and congenital problems, which are out of anyone's control, can also certainly be the reason for injury.

But for the majority of my clients, the underlying reason for their physical problems is this: Their daily activities and bad postural habits, repeated every day for weeks, months, and years, have created alignment problems and muscle weaknesses that have slowly undermined their alignment and made them ripe for the pain they suffer.

Because they don't know that their poor body habits, from the way they sit at work to the way they hold their babies, are the most likely reason for their discomfort, they do little or nothing to exercise the body to be strong enough for how they move every day. This is the primary reason why they suffer from so many aches and pains.

When I explain this to my clients, it's as if I'm telling them for the first time that the earth is round. They have no idea that there is any connection between poor postural habits and their discomfort. The idea that a shoulder problem is more likely related to poor posture from years of bending over the computer all day than to the tennis game they played over the weekend astounds them.

But this is a very logical concept. It makes sense that when you perform the same tasks every day, sometimes for years, they will have an impact on your body. If you have been sitting at your desk at work with your upper body rotated toward your computer, your muscles have tightened and affected the alignment of your trunk. This unnatural posture has created imbalances in the strength and flexibility of your muscles—some are too tight, others have become weak. As a result your joint movement has been compromised and your muscles have become strained, which can lead to pain.

While to anyone with a background in anatomy this ignorance of basic mechanics seems surprising, I think there are two important reasons most people are unaware of the connection between the way they use their bodies every day and the aches and pains they may be suffering.

First, our bodies usually get us where we want to go and allow us to get through the workday and perform well enough for most of our recreational activities. As a result, we take our ability to move for granted and don't pay much attention to our bodies until they start to hurt.

Second, even if you are interested in improving your fitness, there's very little information available to laypeople about simple body mechanics and why it's important to maintain strength and flexibility for what they do. As a result, many people are left with outdated fitness information that doesn't address their needs.

But I have found that if I can teach my clients the basics of anatomy so that they understand body mechanics, teach them to analyze how they use their own bodies during the day, and then teach them exercises that address their individual needs, they become strong and flexible so that all their activities become easier. They no longer have pain at work or at play.

Further, as they become more knowledgeable about body mechanics and how they use their own bodies, they begin to understand what exercises they need to do to keep healthy for their activities.

They begin to take charge of their own fitness and health in a truly remarkable way.

When you understand how your body works, you will have the tools to create a personalized exercise program that will keep you strong, flexible, and less prone to injury.

My program isn't a cure-all for everyone, and I don't want to offer facile advice to people suffering from serious pain due to illness or trauma. But for people who are able to participate in regular exercise, my program works. Intelligent exercise need not be the province of a few expert exercise gurus. We all deserve a shot at it.

Copyright © 2005 by Renée Daniels and Janice Billingsley.