What is the golden age for posture correction?

There has never been an absolute "golden age" for posture correction. The current mainstream consensus in the clinical and sports rehabilitation fields is that the age of 3 to 12 is the most cost-effective stage for intervention, and the age of 12 to 18 is the window period for suboptimal adjustment efficiency. Even if you are an adult, as long as the method is correct, you can still achieve visible improvements - there is no such thing as "after a certain age, you can no longer correct it."

A while ago, a mother came to my studio. She rushed in with her son, who had just entered third grade, and asked, "My child is now 9 years old. He always does his homework crookedly. A blogger said that if the hunchback is not corrected before the age of 10, he will live a lifetime. Is it too late to catch up now?" ”He also took out a stiff orthotic belt from his bag. He said it cost more than 3,000 yuan to buy. After wearing it for a week, the child said he was out of breath in class and did not dare to carry it to school.

In fact, it’s no wonder that parents are anxious. At the age of 3 to 12 years old, children’s spinal epiphyses have not yet been completely closed. The bones have high organic matter content and strong plasticity. In addition, the elasticity of soft tissues is good. Many early pseudo-hunchbacks, high and low shoulders, and mild foot valgus are not needed at all. Buying ridiculously expensive corrective products means changing your bad habits of bending your body while doing homework, slumping on the sofa and holding a tablet. You can spend 10 minutes a day hanging on the horizontal bar and playing frog jumping. You can get it back in two or three months. The cost of intervention is extremely low. It is not an exaggeration to call it a "golden period". Oh, by the way, some scholars in the field of children's motor development believe that children can start paying attention to their posture as early as 2 and a half years old after their gait is stable. For example, don't always let your child carry heavy objects with one hand, and don't always hold your child to sleep, which will cause head shape deviation. If you intervene early, you can avoid subsequent problems. This view is now gradually recognized by more pediatricians.

But having said that, if you are really over 12 years old, there is no need to be dejected and feel like there is no hope. In adolescence between the ages of 12 and 18, although the hardness of the bones is higher than that in early childhood, they are still in the process of growth and development. Many children of this age develop bad habits due to being shy about holding their breasts, or sitting for long periods of time doing homework, resulting in rounded shoulders, forward head, and even mild scoliosis. The adjustment efficiency is still much higher than that of adults. I picked up a 16-year-old high school girl last year. The physical examination and X-ray showed that she had scoliosis with a Cobb angle of 12 degrees, and a shoulder height difference of almost 2 centimeters. Even in her school uniform, she could see that her shoulders were higher and lower. She was afraid of being laughed at by her classmates for wearing a brace, so she came to my place every week to practice. Twice, I usually spend 15 minutes at home every day to do the designated activation movements. Half a year later, the Cobb angle dropped to 4 degrees, and it was basically impossible to see that the shoulders were crooked. When the little girl came to announce the good news, she specially wore the off-the-shoulder skirt she had just bought, and she was very happy.

As for what many people ask, "I'm in my twenties and thirties and my bones have grown to death, can I still adjust?" ”I directly show them the comparison chart of my client every time. A 35-year-old Internet programmer stretches his head 6 centimeters forward and often suffers from migraines. After practicing for 3 months, most of his head straightened and the frequency of headaches dropped by 80%. ； A 40-year-old mother of two children, her hips became wider after giving birth to her second child, and she always had sprained ankles when walking. After four months of practice, she was able to fit into tight jeans that she couldn't fit into before, and her walking became more stable. Adult bones have indeed been completely ossified, but 90% of ordinary people's postural problems are not caused by bone deformation at all. They are caused by muscle tension imbalance, joint compensation, and movement pattern errors caused by long-term bad habits. As long as you relax tense muscles, strengthen weak muscles, and change daily bad habits, improvement is inevitable, but it is slower than that of children and requires more patience.

Nowadays, two factions are quarreling fiercely on the Internet. One faction catches parents and shouts, "You are already in shape after the age of 10. It's too late if you don't buy corrective products now." The other faction pats its chest and says, "Age is not a problem at all. You can regain your girlish figure even at the age of 80." In fact, both of them are quite extreme. The former is obviously to create anxiety to sell goods, while the latter is mostly about fitness training and making blind promises to attract customers. Objectively speaking, age does affect the efficiency and cost of correction, but it is never the criterion for judging whether it can be corrected. If you find that you have a problem with your posture now, whether you are 10 years old or 50 years old, it is your golden period to start intervening now.

One last thing to say, if you really find a problem with your posture, go to the orthopedics or rehabilitation department of a regular hospital for investigation first, and rule out pathological problems first, such as congenital scoliosis and hip dysplasia. Don’t just go to a famous bone-setting institution and don’t blindly buy correction belts that make you breathless. It’s better to find the right cause and then take action.