POSTURE CRIMES - LOCKED KNEES

When the knees are locked, the thigh muscles are virtually turned off.Our thigh muscles are our bodies’ biggest and strongest muscles. These muscles are designed to bear our weight.

Muscles are designed to bear weight, not bones. Without the thigh muscles abundant strength weight load is borne on the bones and joints, especially the arches, ankles, knees, hips, and low back.

Gravity pulls down on our bodies at a constant and unvarying angle. Our muscles are designed to resist gravity by holding the bones in a springy upright shape. When we lock our knees we place our muscles and bones in a shape we were never designed for, that results in weakness, pain, bone and joint breakdown.Overcoming gravity is simple: you have to drive up against it (Spring)! Anything that causes your muscles to forget or fail to spring creates weakness and eventually pain. Sagging, hunching, and knee locking are the primary forms of self sabotage that inflict needless pressure and pain on our joints and spines.

Knee locking tilts the pelvis down and forward, compressing the low back and pitching the gut wall down and forward, causing the ribs to collapse and the shoulders to round; in other words the upper body sags. Sag in the upper body translates downward often causing the locked knees to twist inward and the arches and ankles to collapse. Locked knees inhibit strength in the thighs, leading to complaints of pain and fatigue from prolonged standing. Unless you’re a couple hundred pounds overweight; standing should present no problem. The human skeleton is admirably designed for standing, and walking, and sitting. That’s what humans do. Fish swim, birds fly, horses run, and humans stand, walk and sit. There’s nothing wrong with our design. It is our habits, conscious and unconscious that betray us and inflict pain, weakness and the symptoms of age.

Fortunately our bodies are always willing to work better, stronger, springier; if we just give them a chance and quit sagging, hunching, and knee locking. We can train our muscles to quit locking our knees with simple 30 second exercises, mostly isometric and invisible. Want some spring?

Give this a try:

Bend your knees just a little.Twist your thighs out just a little.

Lift just your toes as you inhale

Squeeze your heels as you breathe out (isometric) repeat for 3 reps!

Try it you’ll feel springy. Your legs will like it so much pretty soon they won’t be locking all the time! Enjoy your strength and spring!