Posture and Natural Curvatures
The word posture comes from the Latin verb ponere, which means "to put or place." The general concept of human posture refers to "the carriage of the body as a whole, the attitude of the body, or the position of the limbs (the arms and legs)."
Webster's New World Medical Dictionary defines neutral posture as the stance that is attained "when the joints are not bent and the spine is aligned and not twisted. Neutral posture has given rise to the idea of achieving “ideal posture.” Ideal posture indicates proper alignment of the body’s segments such that the least amount of energy is required to maintain a desired position. The benefit of achieving this ideal position would be that the least amount of stress is placed on the body’s tissues. In this position, a person is able to completely and optimally attain balance and proportion of his or her body mass and framework, based on his or her physical limitations. Good posture optimizes breathing and affects the circulation of bodily fluids.
Read more about this topic: Neutral Spine
Famous quotes containing the words posture and/or natural:
“The Dada object reflected an ironic posture before the consecrated forms of art. The surrealist object differs significantly in this respect. It stands for a mysterious relationship with the outer world established by man’s sensibility in a way that involves concrete forms in projecting the artist’s inner model.”
—J.H. Matthews. “Object Lessons,” The Imagery of Surrealism, Syracuse University Press (1977)
“It would be one of the greatest triumphs of humanity, one of the most tangible liberations from the constraints of nature to which mankind is subject, if we could succeed in raising the responsible act of procreating children to the level of a deliberate and intentional activity and in freeing it from its entanglement with the necessary satisfaction of a natural need.”
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)