Site navigation and social media links
How to Stay Pain Free
Health | May 28, 2015
Why Postural Therapy
The reason why I started posting postural therapy routines in the ZGYM is not just because I had a serious back problems myself and became interested in this method after I managed to heal myself. The main reason is the incredible amount of comments, emails, and personal encounters with people that have been dealing with some type of physical pain. I think we live in a time where staying active throughout the day is becoming more and more difficult. Most of us have sedentary jobs. We now spend more time sitting in the car driving, instead of waking like our grandparents used to. This lack of movement is contributing to the wide spread problem with chronic pain. Even the best athletes, no matter how strong and talented they are have been dealing with the same issues in terms of their posture, just like the rest of us. Postural therapy is basically series of exercises that will help you to put your musculoskeletal system back into it’s natural and functional design. It will help you to get rid of not just the symptoms such as pain or lack of mobility, but also the cause of the symptoms which is important in the long run. The result of postural therapy is a highly functional, pain free body that is ready for it’s peak performance.
Why staying consistent
One of things that so many people don’t get when it comes to postural therapy is that it’s a work that’s never done. You can’t do the routines for a week or a month and expect your body to stay in neutral for the rest of your life. It’s like working out really hard and getting into the best shape of your life within 3 months and expecting that you’ll stay in top shape forever without ever lifting your butt off the couch again. It’s virtually impossible to be able to avoid pain, and keep a good posture without any effort. You will ruin your posture sitting, walking, running, exercising, standing, skying, playing tennis, wearing high heels and also sleeping. It’s better to accept that, so you don’t falsely believe that this or that particular exercise is what actually hurt you, or that running is bad for you because it hurts your knees. Sorry, but it’s not the exercises or the running that is hurting you. Our body is designed to run, jump, crawl, walk and withstand high impact exercises. It’s the misalignment in your posture that is putting too much pressure onto your joints, causing the cartilage to wear itself out. It’s the muscle imbalance that has happened over time that is causing improper load of your joints, making them prone to injury.
What leads to bad posture are all sorts of your daily activities (even the most passive ones), but of course the last cherry on the cake or the straw that broke the camel’s back is always the one thing we blame. The solution for many people is to avoid the activity completely. People stop exercising when they hurt their knees doing squats, or when they start feeling pain in their lower back doing kettlebell swings. They come to conclusion that these type of exercises are the cause of the pain and dangerous and they abandon fitness activities or sports that are so beneficial for our overall health. The solution is to stay consistent with your efforts to keep your posture always in the proper alignment via postural therapy however. If you make postural therapy exercises a part of your daily fitness routine, you’ll be about 99% less prone to chronic pain or injury.
Accept the responsibility
This is probably one of the most important things to keep in mind. You are the one responsible for your health and fitness, and you don’t need to rely on postural therapists to walk you through the routines every single time. You can learn the exercises, heal your body with postural therapy and keep a strong and functional posture for the rest of your life, if you accept the responsibility and remain pro-active.
Other articles for Postural Therapy
Private Member |
Could you also show us some exercises for the neck? Especially for people who sit in front a computer all day and stare at the monitor? 🙂
Private Member |
I am new in Zgym. I am very interested in Postural Therapy since I have RA.
My question is how or when do I include Postural Therapy in the Workout schedule you propose here?
Private Member |
lake tahoe, nv, usa
You can do your postural therapy as much as your time allows you to. There’s no specific time you should be doing the routines. Just pick a routine for your specific problem and do it as needed to reduce the pain. When I had a herniated disc and suffered with pain, I was doing the routine as much as 5 times a day at first, and then I decrease the amount of sessions as the pain started dissipating.
Private Member |
Thank you for your reply!
I have been following you in youtube and doing your workouts randomly, but I have decided to join in zgym to follow a more systematic routine of workouts in order to work all my body muscles and protect my joints!.
Thank you!
Private Member |
Hello ZUZKA how are you ?? I call Adriana and I just started bikini and bunny I ask you how many kilo uses in kettlebell bikini ??
And where you can find postural videos?
Grazie mille.. ciao
Private Member |
Hi Zuzka,
Thanks for a great site, and great material! I have been using this site for about 3 month, and I try to follow your weekly schedule, which works well. I’m also very interested in improving my mobility and overall flexibility, and I try improving this by doing regular stretches, yoga and now your Postural Videos. I figured from the three postural conditions, that I’m mainly condition 1 with a bit of condition 2 coupled with very tight hamstrings. However I have now started to feel some soreness in my lower back, I don’t know exactly what triggered it, I like to think that the Fit Slide workouts, typically makes it worse.
I have two questions for you, one is, can this be part of a transition period when I’m correcting my posture? Question two I focus on the hip correction video on daily basis, part from that do you have any recommendations for me moving forward with this?
Thanks again! 🙂
Kim
Private Member |
lake tahoe, nv, usa
Hi Kim, if you feel that certain exercises are making the pain worse, than you should avoid them until you figure out what exactly is going on and how to fix it. Typically feeling pain after exercising is not a part of of the process of correcting your posture. The exact opposite should be happening. It’s really hard to try to diagnose someone’s posture that I have never seen. I can only think of something from the top of my head but might be wrong. What I would suggest for you is to set up a session with a professional from Egoscue. It can be done over Skype and they will tell you what is going on and they will give you an exercise routine that will be specific for your condition, because everyone is different and my routines are for general conditions and pains.
Private Member |
Hi again Zuzka,
Thank you for the advice. For now I find Ergoscue prices a little too steep, for a skype session, but I will consider it. I will continue doing your postural video’s for lower back pain, I still believe my condition is quit, caused by sitting at a desk for long hours.
Thanks again for a great site and great workouts!
Private Member |
knees, please! I suffer with my knees! Had to quit with the jump lunges!
Private Member |
I use to have massive popping and cracking and pain in my knees. I started to take Gloucosime Chondroitin/Collagen. I started taking it years ago. It’s called joint lube in the vitamin world also it attacks inflammation and aids in hair skin and nails growth, thickness and skinniness. Don’t take my word read for yourself. I have been taking it for 10yrs and no joint pain period and my skin shines, nails are strong, and hair is thick and shiny.
Private Member |
Hey, thanks for your reply! Good to know it actually works,I’ll give it a try.
What has been helping me a lot over the past couple of months is the postural therapy workouts for the knees that zuzka posted. No problems with my knees anymore. Apparently, it was the bad alignment that was giving me some soreness in the area. I got flat feet too, so it only makes it worse.
I don’t even have to do it everyday. Every other day I do the exercises and it’s been doing wonders for me.
Give it a try for backing up your collagen intake!
Private Member |
usa
This is my second week and Zuzka talks about keeping track or as she calls it “a tracker”. Is that something we do on our own or does she have some sort of tracker we can log on to?
Private Member |
Yes, there is a progress tracker below the workout, just above the comment section. There you can insert your time, number of reps etc. for the workout.
ETA: Sorry, I just saw you posted this over a year ago, so you probably figured it out by now.
Private Member |
Hi zuzka! I am having acl/meniscus surgery soon and im so terrified. I know itll be fine but i was wondering if you had any thoughts or experiences yourself recovering from injuries? Would you be coming out with any articles on how to begin healing emotionally as well as physically? Im ready to put in the hard work but im still overwhelmed ill never be the same and will never want to try hard again. Im so upset i cant train with you for now, but the stretch and tone videos, yoga and postural therapy will become so important later on. Thank you for adding them and stressing over and over how important it is to take rest days. Youre amazing! I cant wait to get make to your workouts!
Private Member |
Hi Zuzka! I was wondering if you have had any experience or and knowledge on sacriotic joint pain. Ive been doing your program for awhile (well except not for the last 2 months 😢) In December I started having terrible lower back pain. I thought maybe it was a herniated disk and was doing your posture therapy! I finally ended up going to a doctor and found out it is my S.I. joints that are giving me the pain. I really miss doing your workouts and hope to soon be doing them again. I feel like im loosing the results of all my hard work. So I was wondering if you know of any exercises or yoga/stretches that I can do to help!! I know your super busy and I really appreciate any help or time you can give! Or if anyone else reads this feel free to let me know 😀🙏
Private Member |
This information is great but it would be good to back it up with some solid evidence based research studies referenced in your writing.