Body Wellness's blog

By Patricia Staszak, PT

Basic Principles of Bike Fit

Fitting a bike properly to a person is a very detailed task and one that is best served by a visit to someone who specializes in this area -  either a reputable bike shop in the area or to a physical therapist or fitness professional. Although I will not be able to cover all the nuances of proper bike fit, I would like to review a few basis principles of the fit simple measurements that you can use to examine your position on your bike. 

By Patricia Staszak, PT

In this last article of the body wellness series, we will review how postural deficiencies can make us more vulnerable to overuse injuries and what we can do to prevent this from happening. To quickly review what we have discussed so far: We know that to avoid excess stress on our joints, we would like our posture to be in line with gravity and our joints to be in a neutral position as much as possible. Doing this will help us better keep our deep stabilizing muscles working at that low hum to give us postural support and keep our joints healthy.

By Patricia Staszak, PT
A joint’s neutral position is the midrange of the joint, where there is the least amount of support from the ligaments and other non-muscular tissues around the joint. Why is neutral important? Because in this position, the small, deep muscles around the joint are in the best position to work to control shear and rotation at the joint’s axis; this lets the joint function more like it was designed to function. Neutral is the position that best minimizes stress through the joint. If we are successful in aligning our body along the plumb line, we are more likely to stand and function with our joints in a neutral position, which is great for our body.
 

By Patricia Staszak, PT

We’ve all been told to stand up straight, throw back our shoulders, hold our head up high. My mother was always on my case about using good posture. But the suggestions we hear often don’t help us improve our posture, and are sometimes even the opposite of a healthy sitting or standing position. What does “good posture” really mean? Most people don’t know. In our clinic, we see a lot of people who think they are standing up straight but who are actually not in a good position; instead, they are putting excessive stress on certain joints.