Don’t Make Your Pain Worse

The biggest mistake for relieving pain from imbalanced posture is stretching the muscles that are in pain. In most cases, muscles in pain are already overstretched. Stretching them further will just worsen the pain. 

Let’s explore this through an analogy. Imagine your neck is a pillar, with ropes bolted on two sides near the top. At the base of the pillar on both sides, are workers holding on to the ropes to stabilize the pillar. Muscles — like the workers holding on to the ropes — can only pull; they cannot push.

Now imagine this pillar is falling towards the left side. Who’s going to have to work harder to prevent the pillar from falling? Yes, the workers on the right side. If this state is sustained for a long time without correction, the workers on the right side will start to complain. Your muscles complain in the same way — their language is pain.

So if the pillar is falling towards the left, would you keep pulling it to the left? No, you pull it to the right to bring it back to an upright position. Then the pillar can support itself. Neither side of workers needs to overwork. Everybody is happy. 

It’s the same with your body. Let’s take an example of the neck. When the neck is chronically leaning to the left, the muscles on the right have to work all the time to prevent the neck from falling over to the left. The right side of the neck will start developing aches and pain. If you stretch the muscles on the right side, it will pull the neck to the left even more, exacerbating the imbalance, causing you more pain. Instead, stretch the left side to bring the neck back to centre. When the bones in the neck are aligned, they can support the weight of your neck and head. Then the cause of pain is removed.

So when your muscles are in pain, don’t stretch those muscles! Look to stretch the muscles on the opposite side. When the left side of the neck is in pain, stretch the right side. When the upper back is in pain, stretch the front chest. When twisting one way is causing pain, twist the other way. Experiment and find the movement where you feel the in-pain muscles slightly contracting, without causing significant discomfort. This means the over-stretched muscles are contracting back to their normal length — relieving the cause of your pain.