The Crackin' Backs Podcast
We are two sport chiropractors, seeking knowledge from some of the best resources in the world of health. From our perspective, health is more than just “crackin Backs” but a deep dive into philosophies on physical, mental and nutritional well-being. Join us as we talk to some of the greatest minds and discover some of the greatest gems that you can use to maintain a higher level of health.
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The Crackin' Backs Podcast
Posture- How is it connected to success? - Dr. Steve Weiniger
Is your posture silently sabotaging your health, confidence, and focus?
Most people treat posture like an old-school nag—“Sit up straight!”—but what if that advice is more powerful (and more misunderstood) than we ever imagined?
In this eye-opening episode of the Crackin’ Backs Podcast, we sit down with leading posture expert, educator, and author Dr. Steven Weiniger to expose the real cost of poor posture in today’s high-tech, high-stress world. From tech neck and back pain to mental health and mood, Dr. Weiniger makes the case that posture isn’t just about bones and muscles—it’s a foundational piece of brain-body performance.
We explore:
The “aha!” moment that made Dr. Weiniger dedicate his career to posture
How the posture epidemic is being driven by smartphones, screens, and sedentary lifestyles
The truth behind the myth of perfect posture—and why “your next posture is your best posture”
What interoceptive posture awareness is and how a few simple posture photos can retrain your body
How posture affects your mood, stress, brain function, and even long-term confidence
Practical, easy-to-follow tips for rebuilding posture—without pain, pressure, or perfectionism
How to help kids, athletes, and desk workers improve their alignment for better performance
Why strong posture is the gateway to longevity, resilience, and vitality
Whether you're a chronic sloucher, an athlete chasing edge, or a parent trying to help your teen avoid back pain and burnout, this episode is packed with actionable insights and cutting-edge strategies to realign your body—and your life.
Start Your Posture Journey with Dr. Weiniger:
Buy his book, Stand Taller—Live Longer:
https://posturezone.com/book/
Learn about the PostureZone System and posture assessments:
https://posturezone.com
Train with Dr. Weiniger through his posture certification and programs:
https://bodyzone.com
Discover the Posture Pictures Toolkit for awareness & improvement:
https://posturepictures.com
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Subscribe to Crackin’ Backs Podcast and never miss an episode of expert insight, practical tips, and jaw-dropping conversations that help you move, feel, and live better.
We are two sports chiropractors, seeking knowledge from some of the best resources in the world of health. From our perspective, health is more than just “Crackin Backs” but a deep dive into physical, mental, and nutritional well-being philosophies.
Join us as we talk to some of the greatest minds and discover some of the most incredible gems you can use to maintain a higher level of health. Crackin Backs Podcast
Steve, what if the way you sit or stand or scroll could be silently destroying your spine, your mood, even your brain function today on the cracking backs podcast, we're joined by posture expert Dr Steven weiniger. He's going to uncover the shocking truth behind this tech neck chronic pain and the modern posture epidemic, from the myth of perfect posture to cutting edge research on posture awareness. Dr weininger is going to share life changing tips you can start using today. Sit up and don't listen too close. This episode might change how you move through your whole life. Dr Steven weininger, it is so good to have you on the show for more reasons than what you're going to talk about regarding posture and the importance and how it affects the human being. But I gotta tell you before you got on the program, your the healing started before we even went on the air. And I really, really appreciate your suggesting me to contact a family member that I haven't spoken to in maybe 20 years. So that was, that was the start of, man, I just got goosebumps. That was the start of healing from the onslaught. So we know that you have a lot to offer. And I want to hear how you started out as a chiropractor and now became the posture King,
Dr. Terry Weyman:you know. But before you even see that Spencer off air you said about the healing, and Stephen lit up. It was like you were talking about how it just made your brain and body feel. And they even saw you change posture and him change posture. And Stephen lit up and was about to say something so and that's when we cut it. We go, we have to talk about this on the air, because you know, when you hold grudges for long periods of time, it can affect your health in so many ways. And Stephen, can you elaborate what you were going to talk about?
Dr. Steve Weiniger:Well, first I'd like to back up to say what I was saying before, to clarify because I think the context of this from a from whatever your belief about the universe in the world that we live in is coincidental, being coincident, occurring at the same time or across time. The coincident that Spencer asked me about was, if I spoken to his family member, lately, am I still speaking to him? And as it happens, I speak to his family member once a month, because we're in a club and we have dinner together. And additionally, the new course that I'm working on is about a different aspect of posture, both from a clinical and, most importantly, from a neurologic and behavioral point of view, that people don't realize, and I didn't realize when I first started doing the stuff that I do about how it fits into this context, but on a macro concept about Cairo, about what Cairo's are, and to me, what Cairo should be is a healer. What I had spoken to his cousin and told his cousin that I was going to be being speaking to Spencer this week, because two weeks ago he asked me. He asked me about you because I mentioned I was talking with him, and he told me a similar story to what you told me that was somewhat personal on both of your sides, from different perspectives, but I really had the perception of you guys need to talk, man, you really need to talk. And so I said exactly that, and that's when Terry said, Stop, because this is something that people should be aware of. Terry, I couldn't agree with you more, because you what you said a moment ago, that you saw both my posture change and Spencer's posture change. And that was not rehearsed on anybody's thought. It was not, hey, I'm standing straight bullshit. It was the way we as human beings are, the way that people are, people are unique, and it's not what one of the things I talk about a lot, especially now, it's not mind and body. It's some schizophrenic thing that was they caught was wrong man, that was centuries ago. You are one thing that fit together, and you can affect it in different ways, but not all the ways that you think you can. And the way you look at the world is very often not right, but it's reiterating the things that you thought before that you'll keep on doing, whether it is mental or physical or behavioral. And so what I spent special, but I really suggest you do talk, give them a call, talk, because I really from talking to both of you, I feel that you guys need to connect and be better for both of you and for other people. And you said that I was being a healer. You said that completely without me prompting it. That's the theme of what I'm talking about with the new course we're working on about interception and posture. You. And connecting these things in terms of creating more of a posture intelligence, of knowing your body, being connected to your body, not just in standing straight, not just in how you sit, but in how you move and how you breathe, that affects all your emotions as well, and your interceptive function. That is arguably from a neurologic point of view, from an evolutionary point of view, the thing that lets human beings become what we are on this planet. The difference between the homo sapiens and Homo erectus and lesser primates has been the development of our interoceptive nervous system and our interceptive sense, and it's part of how we behave. And my belief is that chiropractors are truly healers in terms of the people that gravitate to our profession, and that the effects that we have from an adjustment have far more interceptive influence than we than we've known about, because most chiropractors don't know interception from a football interception.
Dr. Terry Weyman:Hey, Steven, I'm going to inject for a second. There's before we get into your background, all that, which we should have done first. But I love this shit there. There is, there is no coincidence that when somebody's depressed, sad, mad, angry, that they're hunched forward, they're they're bent forward. And when people are happy, when they're when they're in a good place, they stand straight, they sound their heads back. Posture is more than just a military style of walk straight. It's emotional and and it's it's more than that, and that's what's going to be great about this show as we dive into it. It's more than I want people understand. Posture is just not about staying straight. It's an entirely bigger picture.
Dr. Steve Weiniger:I want to know me right, Terry.
Dr. Spencer Baron:I want to know how Steve and Terry and myself, how we all went to chiropractic school, college, university and learned a certain curriculum that isolated, you know, mental, nutritional, physical, but it was not, what was your moment that that aha moment, Steven, that you went, you know what posture I need to be more involved in, just the what might seem as the basics, but it's really the global perspective, And that's as posture is, How did that start for you?
Dr. Steve Weiniger:That's a it's an interesting question, because I could take it back to chiropractic school. I could take it back to getting Bar Mitzvah. Once upon a time, I
Dr. Spencer Baron:want to hear about the bar mitzvah party. Because I was so short when I was getting burnt with I had to stand up straight.
Dr. Terry Weyman:I did not want to go there. Well,
Dr. Steve Weiniger:after I get words on mystery, the one of my dad's best friend Shelly, came up to me and Steven, you looked so good over there. You were standing. You were standing so straight. You had night standing straight. You had good bearing. You were there, and I knew Shelly since I was a little kid, and that meant a lot to me. And I don't usually think about about Shelly, but as coincidentally, again, I did reach out, and he passed away earlier this year, which tells underlines the point. Don't wait too long to reach out to people, but the that was not what I thought about for the past six for the past half century, plus, from a biomechanic point of view, when I was in chiropractic school, remember when they took x rays of you and They said, Okay, you have to go into clinic. I lived into a chiropractor before building undergraduate, started being a chemistry major, then went to bio, then psych, then bio, Psych and bio, I flip back and forth so many times. Ended graduating with double major because it's easier to do that and give up one versus the other. Sorted back on to medical school, back going to dental school. I had my faculty advisor Brooklyn College with 45,000 like closest friends, so three times in school, said that if you want to be a medical doctor, you have to get used to people dying on you, and that's what they teach you in when you're going through residency and everything, because otherwise you can't function because people are going to die on you. And on a personal basis, I saw that guy at that time. I think I had driven a cab in New York. So I was working in the city. I didn't want to be the guy that I saw that would have done really well. I didn't want to be that guy and my next door neighbor, who his name was Steve Barnett, we grew up next door to each other. He told me about his uncle that was teaching at the chiropractic school in Long Island, Dr Fox, talk to him, decided to look into it, decided to go to New York chiropractic college. After graduate, Barnett was also going to chiropractic college in Iowa. I went to New York. We both decided to come down and practice in Atlanta. And so we've been friends for years, and he's still dear, dear friends. But then when I started in practice, I noticed that I adjusted people, and they kept on coming back. That was good for business, but it didn't feel right. And I started doing Craig's rehab work. I got into yonder his work. I spent time in the States when, when yonder was here, when he went to when he was in Prague. I went to a program in in Prague with him. I ended up getting friendly with the organizers there, and spending time with him before and after, and having dinner with him a couple of times. And that really influenced how we started looking at posture. I did Joe cipriano's Joe Cipriano and I were of cipriano's orthopedic neurologic testing book, which been used in the chiropractic schools for like five editions. Joe and I did a managed care program together that we had a network of doctors in Georgia that were practicing in a certain way, that were the good guys, that the guys that were trying to help people. And the the part of that would happen with it was he started doing another copy of the book, and I said you should do something that posture, posture should be part of an orthopedic neurologic exam, not just saying good and bad in a checklist, but looking at what it is from a subtlety point of view, so in terms of the way that I look at posture now as a connection between what yonder did and the basic orthopedics point of view from biomechanics, it started when I don't even tell this story like this, but it's an interesting story. If you think, Am I doing okay with this because this I don't, I'm not really strung this together like this. Look, this is very
Dr. Spencer Baron:true. Continue.
Dr. Steve Weiniger:I said you should do a chapter that posture. And he started doing one. And he said, what I think of it? And I said it's derivative. You're copying stuff that PP has been saying for years, and it's not to me what chiropractic is about. Chiropractic is about the whole person. At the time, the word was more holistic. It's not just about you've got this forward head posture, so make it go like that, and then you're okay. It's not like that. It's you're one person. So I ended up doing the doing. The first thing I did from an academic point of view was I did the posture assessment chapter in that edition, and later editions of his book, and we started incorporating some of the work that I've done from a yoga point of view. And in school, like we found out that I had Sherman's disease, and that's why my posture had always been pulled forward. And so the joke became, oh, why are you going to be a 65 year old guy? Punched over because that was a picture of a guy with Sherman's disease. I don't want to be that guy. And that gave me an interest in what how do you exercise in that direction? What do you do? And the stuff that was out there was also very derivative. It didn't make sense from a whole person point of view, and it wasn't actionable in terms of changing behavior in life. We started putting some things together to make a long story short, I started and putting things in my practice. Some of my friends came to see me. They started doing some things in different directions, because I was getting reputation in the practice of doing that in 2003 I didn't like a lot of the boring CE, so I'm just going to do a seminar. I did something for the state association. It was well received. And then I said, Hey, this is a good idea. Let's start doing it. And so starting in 2004 we started doing probably 20 week 20, give or take, weekends a year, traveling around, talking to people, which is along the way where I probably miss Spencer. Well, I think we may have connected one time before that, at a conference. And then the in 2006 I had actually Cipriano was one of three friends within a week that said, Steven, you can do anything you want to do. You can't do everything you want to do. Because I want you to write up. Wanted to write a book. I want you to do some other things. Because, to tell your point, I thought the chiropractors could be and should be more than we are. We should be making a bigger contribution. And some of the stuff that we're asking for respect. Give me a respect. No, no, no, no, you got to. Backwards. You earn respect for what you do and your actions. Your words don't mean that much. Now listen to them, but look at what you do, and if everything lines up, then you begin to earn respect over time, because the good things take time. It's not a conferred thing, just like
Dr. Spencer Baron:but I want to ask you, I want to, I'm sorry. I want, I want. I want to ask you a particular question. It's probably on the minds of our viewers and listeners, and that is what, what is the big deal about sitting up straight? People think, oh, that's something grandma would always say to me. And then some of them have just that animosity that they don't care. They'll just slouch but what we have an epidemic or a pandemic of now is people that slouch or have bad posture. What's your what is your your pitch, or your speech that you would give somebody if you were in an elevator and you were going from the first floor to the 70th floor and you only had that amount of time, why would they go see you? About sitting up straight. 10 more seconds, 10 more seconds left.
Dr. Terry Weyman:10 seconds, no,
Dr. Steve Weiniger:no, no, no, it's not that fast. I was thinking when I when I used to work delivering lunch in high rises in Manhattan. Okay, to get up for the 70th floor is probably about 45 to 55 seconds. So I was deciding whether hit you with one point to two. And I said, You know what I'm hitting with two points. So if I, if I if I have that and spend to set the timer on me being my guest, you don't understand what posture is. Your posture is how you balance your body. It's how you're balancing the mass of your body. And if you're balancing your mass with your head like this, well, do this right now. Your head like this, and your shoulders like this. Take a deep breath in notice how much air you get? Okay? Now, stand up tall, shoulders up, back down, lift your head. Look straight ahead and now, take a deep breath in which one gave you more air? Posture, stretch everything in how you do, beginning with how you breathe and when you stop breathing. Bad things happen. Spend so what's my time?
Dr. Spencer Baron:Oh, I shut it off because I thought that was really ridiculous. You have all the time in the world. Steve,
Dr. Terry Weyman:15 seconds, Steven, you made it to the 40th floor three more floors ago.
Dr. Spencer Baron:Steve, let me ask you. You know, here's a common problem, though, people will sit up straight, and then they kind of melt back into that position
Dr. Steve Weiniger:again. Spencer, I have been at FCA talking on one of their conferences, and I can, you know when they have the big the big one in Orlando. And yeah, people there, right, yeah. And you woke up. Dr Steven wine, and you're looking at the audience, and you can see the first couple of rows that lit up after that. There's 1500 people in the room. You don't know how, you can't see them, and it's different when the lights are on you than in a regular classroom, right? I'm Doctor wine, and I'm here to talk about posture. And you look at the first people in the front, it's hilarious. They all go like this, yes, yes. They all do that in every class I've ever taught. When you first stand up and when you put their attention on posture. Yep, I know it's like this. They're standing stupidly half the time, but it's their perception of what they're doing. And these are doctors. Patients are worse. I've not looked at that part of on that, but what happens in the game that Stephen plays I jump with it, is that, okay, this, it's going to be about 15 seconds, so I'm counting that in the back of my mind. And you can see right around the 15th, 22nd mind. Look, they will go in like this. They're all going back, because you're not supposed to be thinking. Someone that was thinking about the posture all the time is insane. Your brain. That's not what bodies and brains are supposed to do together, however more qualitative, if you do something like, oh, exercise, and you move your body in a certain way, you start to do it in a reflexive way. You forget the training. If you're throwing a football, I give you a football. Say, throw it. May throw it like this, like a basketball. You don't show you how to hold it. You're going to throw it in a lot of ways that it's stupid, that's biomechanically intelligent. If you teach me one or two things at a time and then link those together, I'll be able to be able to do it better, especially if I practice, and especially if a coach is helping me to refine those motor powers in modern societies don't sit, and the problem with sitting is the body in most men. More modern society, since 2007 with the iPhone, we have put something into the hands of kids, so they go like this. But it's not just kids, it's everybody, the the young. Generation is having more problems with forward head posture, which has become 1000s of disease. And it's not a disease, it's a consequence of what you're doing with your body. Your muscles are hypertrophy. You're exercising too much. Nobody says that you're training your body to move in ways that are against your body's lasting longer. And from an evolutionary point of view. Once you're done making babies, it doesn't really matter to evolution and genetics. It does matter however to live it, which is why it's so important, and it's such an opportunity for chiropractic to be doing it in a here's a hyper important point, non pathologizing way. When I see some of the crap that I see on the internet, some people that have borrowed some of our stuff and ideas, and they use it in a way to pathologize and create fear based adherence to adherence approaches of, Hi, this is going to be a $10,000 program. My best friend, only five grand, but you got to sign on it today, nonsense that that is not what I think a healer should do. A healer should engage the person. Should help the person in a way that is both cognitive and and experiential, which, if you think about it, when you ask me about that, that that 70 floor, 40th floor elevator ride, I was deciding whether I wanted to talk about the cognitive side thing with the experiential side, when I was stopping to think about it, and my thought was, I got time for both.
Dr. Spencer Baron:So when, when somebody comes up to you and says, Hey, Doc, you know I orthopedic surgeon did some X rays. My necks been bugging me, but, you know, I got these spurs, or these things that are growing on the front of my spine. What do you tell them? How, you know, where do you start from when describing can you get rid of them? Or, you know, how did they come about? I'm kind of giving you the end and hoping that you give me the beginning of that. I'm
Dr. Steve Weiniger:going to turn your end backwards. Okay, good, love. So how they came about is the story your body gets better at doing whatever it is we do. If I keep on rubbing my hand like this, what's gonna happen to my skin over here? Thicker? It's gonna get a count. Same thing happens on the inside. So you've been putting more mechanical stress over there. But it's not just a bone getting a mechanical stress. It's all the soft tissues. Now it this does get bad enough sometimes where there is a growth that puts pressure on the nerve that's growing into it, and then, you know what? Sorry, you need surgery. You've trashed it. You'll be past the point people like that have pain constantly. It doesn't go away. If I put your finger in a drawer and slam it and then keep it there, is it going to feel better in a half an hour? Or you can keep on being do something about it. Does your pain constant all the time, where it doesn't go away with the good days and bad days and the people that we generally can help most people with things like this. They're the good and the bad days, and when they say that, my response is going to be That's great. Your body's designed to move, and we use five posture principles to communicate biomechanics in ways that make sense, and each one of them have pieces that connect to it. Your body's designed to move, so if you're not moving those you're just loading that and how you're moving, instead of emotion being smooth and fluid, if your emotions will choppy, you're loading things in ways that are making things weird, just like in a car, just like on a bicycle chain. I'm into cycling as well. Guess what? I'm into. I'm a big I'm a big recumbent cycle guy. And if a bike chain is not right and there's a rattle, you can look at it, and you can see where there's a shiny spot something, something's rubbing on on the derailleur. Something's rubbing somewhere. Same thing happens in your body, moving your body towards symmetry the way the anatomy was designed. As you go through life. Once you're done having babies, evolution doesn't care about you. If you want to keep this body living for as long as it can. You want to do things intelligently, and you'll regret we live in a different environment. You want to live in the woods. God bless you. But there's trade off in a negative way in that direction. Also, we're living in a new world now, and part of that, I believe, should be a creating an awareness of posture, and making posture posture a part of a normal exam of looking at someone's posture in a way that's clinical and standardized. And then B, having public health things that enable people to help their own posture, to some degree, to be aware of it. And C, having doctors that work with patients that do that with that kind of an effort to help them when they're not moving well, by unlocking something, by teaching them how to move well, by helping person to realize, if it's not moving well, how, what do I do with it? And to work with them to unlock, to facilitate motion, and to then retrain that. So, in other words, be a healer from a postural point of view, with respect to body and mind. And Terry said before, completely true. We can talk about that, that later. I'm talking too much.
Dr. Spencer Baron:No, I'm gonna. I want to. I want to get, get to the point where the rubber meets the road here. So if we get it now, what I understand and what I tell patients is, you're if we look at you from the side, your ears should be balanced over your shoulder. That's all great, and all but for and I from what I understand. And Dr Terry shared with me, if for every one inch that your head is forward, that is a significant amount of pounds per square inch. It's a
Dr. Steve Weiniger:70 pounds. It's 70 pounds is the number that companja came up with his 2013 study.
Dr. Spencer Baron:And people wonder why they have osteophytes growing on the front of their neck. So give me, give me one practical tip, because we talk about posture, posture, posture. But what is something that somebody can do right now that could avoid becoming, as Dr Terry mentioned, the Hunchback of Notre Dame? You know, do
Dr. Steve Weiniger:we use a protocol. Part of the strong posture protocols are using a cueing methodology called PTR. PTR stands for perception to reality. When you're standing tall, your posture is how you're balancing your body. One of the demos that we do if I'm standing here like this, in a way that's obviously not symmetric, in way that's obviously bad posture, exaggerating it in a cartoonish fashion, asking people the question, which is an experiential question, and it's made again, to get people's cognition, the cognitive involved in something I'm standing here like this, on an overall biomechanical basis, is my body balanced?
Unknown:Yep, it's a yes or no question. No, is your body balanced? No,
Dr. Steve Weiniger:okay, am I falling down?
Dr. Terry Weyman:Ah, it is balanced. Yeah, you are balanced. For his situation?
Dr. Steve Weiniger:Yeah, no, no, no, no. That wasn't the question. It wasn't that the question from wearing a blue shirt or green shirt on an overall that it was perfect. I couldn't have, I could not have emphasized that more clearly. And you're both intelligent, and this is the problem. Well, people learn look at things the way that they've learned them, and they keep on doing that, being aware of that is the beginning of shifting that on an overall mechanical basis. The second posture principle, your posture is how you balance your body. So that opens it up to well, what's your body well, to posture, to balance, you're balancing four masses of posture. Four masses the head is balancing on the torso. The torso is more rigid, tied together the upper celebrities that affect the balance. But basically the torso via the spinal column to the pelvis. We have a mass of the torso and a mass of the pelvis that's connected to the big round ball called the earth that's got gravity going this way and pulling us down that way every step we take. So the lower extremity is the mediator between the pelvis and the ground, the foot being the primary point of contact with that from a physics point of view. And this is biomechanics 101, it's completely true, but it's very much understandable to John Q Public, and that's the point. I can talk $10 words to you. And as they said, as they said in Brooklyn, when, when I grew up, if you can't dazzle on with your brilliance, baffling with the Bs, and you got to talk to someone. Understanding listening is in the ears of the listener. Hearing understanding is in the hearing ears of listening. The fact that I know$10 words that you may not know yet doesn't make it right. It's incumbent upon me explain it to you in your language, and that's what we very much try to do.
Dr. Terry Weyman:Yeah, is that$10 word? A 2026 $10 or a 19, you know, 85 $10 because you know that. Can you know, you know
Dr. Steve Weiniger:it's a$1,910
Dr. Terry Weyman:word, oh, man, it's a million dollar word. All right, hey, I got a question, and I'm sorry to interrupt you, but no, no, no, no, to go back. We were always raised with, and we talked about this early, the military style sit up straight at the daring table. And then we started seeing posture shirts and posture braces. If you sit in front of a computer a long time, you have to wear a brace that holds your shoulders back and and all that. And then we start hearing doctors and Janda and all these different talking about, well, posture is whatever your body's in at the moment that's balanced, you know, and fluidity and motions lotion. And all that kind of stuff. So how has the word posture changed over the decades you've been in practice? And what's the bottom line is, what is the perfect posture? Is it whatever your body is in at the moment,
Dr. Steve Weiniger:I need to clarify some assumptions that are implicit in what you said, my friend, perfect that being one of them perfect posture doesn't make any sense unless you've got a perfect body that's always been perfect. You've never had an injury, and you always use it perfectly, because your body changes, your body mode based upon the stress as you place upon it. So simply saying, Well, mine is good enough, the way it is with what I do is accepting the consequences. You can choose actions. You can't choose consequences. The question that I didn't get to answering was, what can people do? Find a wall and lean against it and get this torso and pelvis vertically aligned against the wall, let their feet come after they don't even touch the wall as much as they need to, and then hold their head level and try to push their head back to the wall and take five slow breaths using the core, because that very, very first intro to postural to posture exercise is creating a connection between the reality of the wall vertical, therefore my torso and pelvis are touching it towards one pelvis are vertical. Pelvis are vertical, taking my feet away from the wall lets me disconnect the type sewage problem that is epidemic in our sitting society, for obvious reasons, and get a more accurate perception of if my head is level. And it's hilarious when you do that with people, because you'll notice that they'll be leaning against the wall, and they're pushing their head back to the wall so they can be touching the wall, because they intuitively know that, okay, my head should be touching it too. But the head is in a is in 40 degrees of extension. If you make them get the head level, they say, well, it doesn't go back that way. That is the resting posture. Is what your body can be, and the most aligned that it can be from a static restraint of the length of the kinetic chain. Each joint point of view is what it's good and it's what it's good for you. You don't want to be pushing it past what your body can do because it's outside of your functional range. If nothing's outside your range of motion, is another phrase to use. It not just range of motion, it's range of control. If it's outside of passive range of motion, it's certainly outside of your active range of control, unless you're using ballistic motion to push it into it, in which case you are going to get an injury, because the joints are not made to be bounced off of that at endless so in terms of the question that you started asking, what's good enough? Good enough is when you're functionally able to balance with symmetry and perceive it the same way. Is a really easy thing to do it. And we just had a paper published in frontiers in neuroscience last year about this very thing, and we call it taking an introceptive posture picture. And you don't have to buy anything expensive to do. It's really easy. It's making somebody aware of their posture by saying, I'm going to take a picture of your posture and have them stand up straight. And we do it in front of a posture zone, grid, distance. Disclaimer, that self. Invented that self, that self. I'm talking about our company, but stand up in front of the posture zone grid from the front. Take a picture from the side. Everybody does that, but that process makes them aware of the posture. And then add one more piece, two more pieces. Great. Mr. Great. Mr. Smith, Mr. Barron. Stand tall. Dr Barron, and now stand tall. Keep on standing tall. I put your attention on standing tall. Great. Keep on standing tall. Now raise your left leg for your thigh parallel to the floor, and then when they get to the point of standing tall. Clip, do it in the standard amounts of time. Great. Put it back down. Do it the other side click? Because what you've just captured is a snapshot of the pattern that the balancing that's the posture, is how you balance the four zones of mass of your posture, the four posture zones where your head is compared to centerline, because it's a fee for centerline to begin with, and your head is centerline this way in one picture and that way in the other picture, that says something about the posture, about the pattern of your posture, and then working with them to strengthen that by strengthening one leg balance on each side with that posture, awareness with standing tall. And that's the first exercise that we teach, standing tall and balancing on one foot. Did that answer your question? Does that answer all the questions that I've been skipping over?
Dr. Terry Weyman:No, that's perfect. And when we first started this show, we were talking about a family member, and then we talked about posture and all that kind of stuff. So I want to circle back to that. Can, in your opinion, can we. Fix the person's posture if their mind is not in the right spot, meaning the brain, I've had that right.
Dr. Steve Weiniger:Everything is a two way street, the other way to look at it, which is true and which is one of the things that we talk about in our course. That it's not done yet, but hope to have it done by the by by the by late third quarter, please. I hope how your posture affects your emotional state, and I believe that a lot of the biopsychosocial effects that are talked about from a chronicle back pain point of view, which are true, chiropractic couldn't be adjusting, uh, suspecting, not, but not with an adjustment of the spine, but by creating agency and personal self efficacy, and then being able to pull the body in a progressive way. And this is one of the opportunities I see for the profession. This is one of the things I've been working for. But if someone has a headspace that they don't want to get better, then they won't. You can push them a little bit, however, incorporating something where you can give them the experience of, I thought I couldn't do that. Oh, look, I can do that. Come back, John, you're doing that. It's better, great. And then take them up one more step and make that something that they can physically perceive. And hey, you know what? I didn't think I could hit a golf ball. 100 jobs. Now, if you're 110 120 Hey, I'm getting better. And in sports, I'm sure you've seen kids that have that came to you with a certain headspace, and when you coach them, they've gotten stronger and stronger at something. And that physical strengthening work with a mental strengthening. You were changing their posture. You weren't thinking about it that way, but you were changing the posture. You were changing how they were moving. And then you looked at, hey, the kid looks like you're standing like this because you're having them work their body in that way, taking it down to a really basic point of view to create a benchmark of how that individual is balancing their body, which you're doing every step you take is the beginning point, and the huge point of leverage to not fixing posture correcting posture, but functionally strengthening posture perception to reality. That your perception of how you're standing and balancing to the reality. If I think I'm standing tall and I lift one leg up in the air, if one leg I'm standing tall, great, no problem. I'm balancing, and the other leg I'm like wobbling back and forth. That difference is very much the difference between my perception of where those masses are in reality as captured by that image.
Dr. Spencer Baron:Steven, I love how you are so immersed in the research arena for something that most people take for granted, posture so you know this, I love your interoceptive posture awareness concept. I think that's really cool. I just for shits and giggles. Tell me when you take a photograph of someone, number one, do you tell them? What do you tell them, take your shirt off. I'm going to take a photograph of you or because, naturally they're going to want to stand up straight. So what do you tell them?
Dr. Steve Weiniger:Learn to take a picture of your posture. I want you to stand tall. Show me your best posture. And a lot of people at that point Listen, let me finish. Let me finish. Oh, I'm a big I'm a big believer is, if there's an elephant in the room, drag it out. Let's talk about it, and then put it away. I want you to stand tall. Show me your best posture, at which point a lot of people go into a hard lock, compensatory posture, what they believe it is, and they're all stiff, and they know they can't hold it. And they also hold their breath, yeah. And that lets them okay. Now I can do this, and it's fine. Then telling them, You look, relax, take, take a step or two. Just relax like a stand tall. And just breaking that awareness from it and talking about in something you'll that they shift back into something closer to their more everyday posture. Then take the side view. Stand tall. Best posture, straight ahead. Stand tall. Best posture. Lift your left leg up, good. Put it back down and lift the right leg up. And when they're doing that on both sides, I'm doing it as well, because I want them to be having the visual. There's a cooperative thing of doing it. Plus, if I'm doing in front of them and I'm keeping my leg raised, that creates the psychological imperative on their side to also keep their leg raised, and they find that the balance on one side is not as strong as the other. Even though their perception was, there's going to be a difference, but the reality is one side was a lot different than the other side, and that perception is the beginning for that disconnect of the perception to reality. Well, gee, I pointed the stronger on this side is the beginning of strengthening of them having to decide to do something about it, which is what an adjustment helps tremendously, because we're unlocking mechanical restrictions and stimulating proprioception, as well as imperceptive sensors. The. Even though we're
Dr. Spencer Baron:not aware that we're doing to add to the to the to add to the humor, what was when you they obviously, you show them the photo, when they when they see that photo, when they first see it, what's your typical response? What's their typical response?
Dr. Steve Weiniger:Wow, I don't get blown away. I've I've had people. I had one guy accuse me of having a funny camera that manipulated make him a fan. I swear to God,
Dr. Spencer Baron:that's great.
Dr. Steve Weiniger:I mean General, General incredulity, and especially when you tie that with the explanation from an intercept apostrophe point of view, and then incorporating, the beginning, we use what are called BAM protocols within strong posture. Bam is balance, alignment and motion with three distinct tracks to focus on different functional aspects of how we a positive how the body balances and aligns to move through space. So the stuff you mentioned earlier about people's definition of posture being how you're moving and just where your body is, yeah, that is a snapshot of posture, but it's a moving picture in reality. And all motion begins with posture. All motion ends with posture, creating that awareness and strengthening it functionally. It's something that chiropractors can and should be doing, but in a way that's also helped people to help themselves and helping them to communicate this to others, which is the way that this profession can make a far greater contribution to people and society and local to local doctors areas, which helps their business by being a healer, Not by being a failure.
Dr. Spencer Baron:So balance, alignment and motion, I like that. Bam. So to add to the BAM, somebody that's watching or listening is saying to themselves, yeah, my posture is terrible, but I've been this way for years. What the heck do you say to them?
Dr. Steve Weiniger:No, I disagree with you. You're not going to be like this. This is the best it's going to be for you. It's only going to get worse. To get worse if I have it. Have you ever cut down a tree? Yes, okay, you know how when you first cut it down, especially a big tree, when you first, when it first goes down? I've got trees in the background. I couldn't actually, you know what that tree over there behind me is dead. I need to have it taken down. I don't like this thing. I don't feel comfortable doing it myself. But when it, when that tree goes down, when you, when you put a notch in one side to make it weak, then start cutting the other side, and at some point you're doing it, it's going to start to fall a little bit, and that's usually when you want to step back, because then it'll start to pull a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more, and then it starts to accelerate. And the more it goes down, the more it accelerates and goes boom, the more or center from gravity line the mass becomes. If the mass of the tree is like this, and that's the base of support. The further this is from this, the more the delta V is coming this way. And it's not just the delta V of velocity, it's acceleration. The gravity is 30 feet per second, per second acceleration. That is where we lift. So the more it's pulling down, the more it's going to accelerate as it's going down, and that's what happens too. So which is why, if you want to do better, you can be pushing it back up the hill. I can help you with that if you want me to.
Dr. Spencer Baron:So okay, so let me ask you something, because there, there are people who they grow into bad posture for various reasons, but a lot of times, what we'll see is somebody who has, like, a unilateral injury, maybe in the weight bearing, like a hip hip or knee pain or an ACL tear, and they start, they start shifting their weight. And you'll see that, I mean, this is, you know, kind of a limiting issue, because the ACL eventually heals, and they can
Dr. Steve Weiniger:agree, agree.
Dr. Spencer Baron:What do you do for someone that is part of maybe not direct, rehab of the ACL drug, but rehab of their posture, because they remapped their brain. We've had guests on in the past that talk about you start limping for three months, you still think you're limping, even when that injury heals. Yep,
Dr. Steve Weiniger:yep. Solution, two, two sides of it having a baseline at the beginning, which is why, to me, all rehab programs, all exercise programs, should begin with creating BAM awareness in the individual. So from a sports point of view, one of the things that I'm advocating for, a different thing, and we may want to talk is using the intercept the posture picture as a part of initial screening at the beginning of play. Because if someone does have a head injury to. Our contention is, anecdotally, is it's a screen for being able to return to play safely. If they had good asymmetric weight bearings, they can maintain head over towards the pelvis, lifting the right leg up versus the left leg up after the injury the way they did before the injury. Then there's something that's working the way that it was. If, after the head injury on one side, they're lifting it up. The other side, they're doing something wonky, where they cantilevering over the space of support, there's something's not working right. And having basic, basic posture exercises as part of what they do in in training, just the beginning of it, of doing a stretch to connect perception to reality, as the beginning of the rehab of that process. So what I think should be happening in any rehab is beginning it with creating that perception of reality, unbalancing and on aligning and on the beginning movements of that of that activity. It'll be different for tennis than it's going to be for golf and football, because sports have different motion patterns, but using the balance and alignment as a beginning, self interceptively, self aware beginning of that movement pattern, and then applying it to motion which is which is going to be more
Dr. Spencer Baron:sports specific. Thanks. Great.
Dr. Steve Weiniger:It means I think Terry is either frozen or fascinated, because he's not I say faith is not moving quite a
Dr. Terry Weyman:while I'm fascinated. Oh, go ahead.
Dr. Spencer Baron:So you know, so basically the I think there's some that I was thinking about it earlier, um, scoliosis you got, you know, early stages of scoliosis you got, I mean, this is something.
Dr. Steve Weiniger:Is a whole other, yeah, story, my belief, my personal belief, is that, it's like a lot of conditions that have similar symptoms, have really different etiologies. My personal belief is that scoliosis is does not have a single cause. I believe that there's a error that occurs developmentally in the nervous system, and I believe that different neuromotor or sensory motor errors creates the same compensatory kinds of curves which are categorized as the difference flowing out of pattern. I've intentionally not focused on that. That said I've had, I've had, in practice, some amazing stories for scoliosis, and I've had some haven't touched, the love the money. I had a young woman that was in a full body brace for 23 hours of 23 and change hours a day. And if that didn't reduce the curve that I believe was 37 degrees at that time. In after three months, then they were going to put a Harrington rod in the spine. And this was when I first started focusing on posture from a clinical point of view, the the patient was suddenly pulled in by another patient that paid for the first visit, because I helped her friend, and she wanted to bring and the friend wanted her friend to bring the daughter to me. The daughter took the brace off, and she had a 38 degree 3738 degree curve. We started working with her after and I said, Listen, I don't think I help you. Let's try it for a month and see if there's any difference. We started doing adjusting her, doing a very beginning frames of what became the strong posture exercise. This was a while ago, after a month to talk to her, she had gone to her orthopedic orthopedic surgeon Meantime, and it was good news, because it had not gotten worse in that month. And when she came in, I was talking to the girl. The girl said, One thing I've noticed, though, the brace, I was getting all these rubbing things on my right hip, and was like, all red and raw. And mother said, Oh yeah, it's red now, but it was like getting all these bruises down. It's not as red as it was, and it looked better. They had no insurance. We've been nice to them, but they were paying out of pocket, and I was seeing her regularly over the next three months, and to basically see what happens. And to make a long story short, we saw she was 14, so I guess she was like sophomore, junior, and in high school, the last time I saw her, she was being a professional list frequently. She was in college, and I'm seeing like every two weeks, every week for for a while. And she was this tall, willowy young, young woman that still had a 14 degree curve in his spine. But 14 is not 37 it's not. That kid with a Harrington rod, and she was doing some kind of sports. I forgot what, but I changed that kid's life, that's all. And I wanted to take pictures of it, but the mother was like, did not, not, didn't want him to do, to put in a spotlight, or something like that. But it was, it was the most dramatic school versus
Dr. Terry Weyman:kids I've ever had. Hey, hey, Steven, you know I'm loving this. And to wrap up, it's time to start wrapping up the show. And for that, I want to hear what people have been listening to the show. And they're they're now sitting up straighter, or they're slouching. They're doing something while they're, you know, driving, or they're standing
Dr. Steve Weiniger:right right now. They're sitting if they're driving, they're going like this right now.
Dr. Terry Weyman:They're sitting up straighter because it's consciously aware. Can you give us one or two practical tips to start pushing, as you call that tree back uphill, and get them starting going in the right direction that they can soon as they turn this show off, they can start doing two or three good
Unknown:practical well, actually two, two is good.
Dr. Steve Weiniger:Focus on standing toes. Focus on posture zones. Feel your feet moving back and forth. Feel your pelvis, find your pelvis, move your pelvis, all by itself, isolating that one pelvis, move your torso, lift it up and connect it to the pump, to the to the pelvis. That connection is what people talk about is the core and it's usually important. When they think core exercise, they usually think of flexion exercises, not engagement exercises, and not full range motion exercises in but just standing tall and keep looking straight ahead and leveling their heads and holding that and then lifting one leg up to 90 degrees and taking, he has the hardest part of all five slow breaths, and keeping it up for those breaths, and standing tall and then doing the same thing on the other side and doing it, not trying to do it freely, because what people will do is say, okay, I can do it. I can do it. And they'll bounce back and forth, doing different things. I'm bouncing on one foot right now, or doing it with control touching a wall, if there's not a wall there, but if there were and lifting one leg up and balancing like that and holding that for five breaths while you're talking, there's a difference between how it works the kinetic chain balancing on one foot when you're engaging it in that path, and that's why that one simple exercise. We call it a strong posture. Store makes the difference. The strong posture is the number of exercises, and it's what we teach with the things that we do. Ah,
Dr. Terry Weyman:brilliant. All right, people, time to stand tall and to breathe and to be happy, everything that was fantastic. Steve Steven,
Dr. Steve Weiniger:well, actually, in terms in terms of a plug for the things that we do, I should be doing something I'm realizing talking not doing what they tell me I need to be doing, but the strong posture exercises, we started codifying in 2003 when we started teaching in 2008 we published a book, stand taller, not tall, stand taller, live longer, strategy, and that's on Amazon and other places as well. And it's a it's biomechanics, wrong. I'm going over the five posture principles, postures on grids available on pastazone.com, or or either or Amazon. The training that we do that is most important for doctors to get you need ce, ce soup.com. Has our has our courses, as well as other people that practice in ways that we think are intelligent for where the profession needs to be. We're good for CE in almost every state, probably yours as well. If your state doesn't accept online CE, then it's not good. But the main course is posture, balance and rehab, motor control exercises. It's my current course. We have a new course coming out that ties in interception, but the current course begins the conversation about interception and teaches the basics in practice. The doctors tell me, lets them start to do this in practice. Additionally, we also have posturepractice.com for our CPAP certified posturexional certification, and from a public plan to do posturemont.org. For the public and telling people about posture and we do the posture month.org May's costume. All right, any questions you got me an email,
Dr. Spencer Baron:sounds good. And for any other hot tips on relationship building, call Dr Steve wine, anyway, thanks Steve for earlier, uh, prior to our conversation,
Dr. Steve Weiniger:in truth getting aside chiros are chiros, the good chiros are healers. Yeah, and I think that those of us that have the ability to influence others should be rallying around that as a direction and as a message to the profession as well as the world that we should be sharing. Yeah. About how we can contribute to our society to help people stand taller, move better, perform better and live longer. Thank you. Spencer, thank you enjoyed it. Guys, appreciate
Dr. Spencer Baron:you, Steve. Have a good one. Thank you. Thank you for listening to today's episode of The Kraken bags podcast. We hope you enjoyed it. Make sure you follow us on Instagram at crack and backs podcast. Catch new episodes every Monday. See you next time you.