For ages, bad posture has been assumed to cause back pain. Now some physiotherapists are rethinking what we should be doing with our spines
On the first day of classes at physiotherapy school, all students are made to strip down to their underwear. It’s not a hazing ritual, but it is an initiation of sorts. Unclothed, the students are told to study each other. Who slouches? Who has a flat back? Who suffers from forward head position?
Posture, students are taught, is the key to good health and a strong back. It will be their job, when they graduate, to correct it. People with back pain, they are told, tend to have weak muscles in their backs, leaving their spines vulnerable. Get the postural muscles strong and you could cure the back pain.
