Squatting and lifting weights often require the body to lean forward. Share on Pinterest While squatting or lifting This lengthens your spine from head to pelvis and, again, restores the neutral curves of your spine. Holding your pelvis and rib cage in place, reach the top of your head away from your hips as you bring the back of your head toward the ceiling. Keeping the bowl shape, lift the bottom front of your rib cage up toward the ceiling until it is in line with the front of your pelvis. Then, adjust your pelvis so there’s just a small “bowl” at your low back. Watch how these tilting motions change your lower back curve - from a flat line to a deep bowl. On your hands and knees in front of a mirror, practice tucking and untucking your pelvis. Many exercises start with a quadruped, or “tabletop,” position, and bringing a neutral spine to this hands-and-knees position can put you in a strong place to deal with loads that arise from a variety of exercises. To align your spine while traveling on foot, simply adjust your pelvis, rib cage, and head as you did while standing in place. When we’re locomoting, our parts have to deal with 1.5 (walking) to 3 (running) times our body weight ( 7)! We have a standing body weight (you can find that by standing on a scale), but once we start walking or running, the loads placed on the body increase beyond our standing body weight. The big body parts we adjust to create a neutral spine - the pelvis, rib cage, and head - maintain their relative position as they adjust to the many ways we might load our bodies.
A neutral spine is portable because it adjusts to different planes of motion. The benefits to maintaining a neutral spine are found in many different positions. When you hold your rib cage in place, this simultaneous upward and backward motion of your head tugs your spine away from the ground, restoring the curves in your cervical and thoracic spine at the same time. To reset both the upper- and middle-spine curves to neutral, reach the top of your head toward the ceiling while also sliding your head back (don’t lift your chin) as you bring your ears back toward your shoulders - all while keeping your rib cage in neutral. Technology doesn’t require our bodies to be in this position, though we can adjust our bodies to eliminate this particular effect. These movements flex the vertebrae in both the neck and upper back, which translates to a flatter cervical spine and an excessive rounding of the upper back - one that’s greater than the gentle rounding of a neutral spine ( 6). When we look at a device much of the day, we are often a) lowering the chin to the chest and b) dropping the head forward to the rest of the body. High tech living can mess with our spines.
Learning how to stabilize your spine “in neutral” while standing is essential for loading your vertebrae and intervertebral discs in a sustainable way. It’s not only moving couches, carrying kids, and using the squat rack that stress the spine - adult humans are heavy, and our spines carry quite a bit of weight when simply moving our own upright bodies around. This curvy spinal shape serves a purpose: Neutral curves help the parts of the spine - the bones, discs, ligaments, tendons, and muscles - carry loads efficiently and with minimal damage ( 2). The natural curves of the spine include a slight kyphotic curve (a gentle forward “hunch”) to the upper back, with curves in the opposite direction - lordotic curves - at the neck and lower back.Ī spine aligned in a way that keeps its natural curves intact is referred to as a “neutral spine.”
Even when we “ stand up straight,” we’re not straight the vertebrae are stacked in a way that forms a series of curves. The spine is organized with lighter, smaller vertebrae up top and larger, heavier vertebrae as you move down toward the tailbone.