Some muscles are inheritantly strong, others tend to be weak.
The strong muscles work against the weak muscles, pulling your body even more out of balance. This can manifest poor posture, pain in the shoulders/ neck, low back, and knees. Now you need to see me to get a massage for the magic fix, instead of routine maintaince of stretching/ strengthening and massage for healthy, happy muscles.
Here is example # 1. Your upper back feels tight, yet it is usually weak. Your shoulders stay rounded (forward) most of the day, thus allowing your pecs to become quite strong. Now that this bad posture is continued, the pecs become even stronger and the upper back weaker making it hard for you to sit up straight. It may be a challenge for you to sit up straight just reading this entire newsletter. You need to concentrate on stretching out your pecs (in a doorway) and strengthening your upper back (upright rows). A way to help you maintain a better posture while at your desk/ work is to sit on a large ball. If you collapse your back you will roll off the ball. If you work on the computer, place it directly in front of you so you so not need to turn your head and place the key board near the edge of the desk. This makes it so you cannot depend on your arms to support your upper body weight.
Other muscle imbalances are found in the abdominals VS lower back AND hamstrings/ inner thigh VS quads/ outer thigh.
Most people have a very weak abdomen. The more the core stays contracted (crunches) in a day, the better. Your lower back is stronger than your abs, but could use some strengthening (superman). This is because most people do not use lumbar support in their chairs; instead it is more common for you to strain your back by sitting where you reverse the curve in your back. The ball will help with this as well because it is not really possible to not sit on your seat bones without falling off. This imbalance with the legs causes low back pain. If the posture is bad enough, the back could develop a ruptured disk.
The legs when unbalanced can cause a few problems, the more common ones that I personally see is low back pain and knee pain. The outer thigh and quadriceps are stronger (usually by 60% or more) when compared to the hamstrings and inner thigh. This makes the knee track more towards the outer thigh with each step. The stronger it is, the more your knee tracks, the more pain and inflammation develop. This gets helped by using ices on the knee for about 7 minutes after inflammation. The inner thigh can be strengthened by laying sideways on the floor and lifting the lower straight leg as high as possible. The hamstrings can be strengthened by laying on your belly and attaching a weight to the ankle, than bending at the knee slowly to bring the calf vertical. The quads and outer thigh need to be stretched. One way is to sit on the feet, put your hands on the floor behind you and lift the pelvis from your feet. The outer thigh can be done by sitting on your feet and putting the hands on the side of the body on the floor and allow yourself to rock side to side.
While there are weak muscles that need strengthening, they also need to be stretched (especially the hamstrings).
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