Assessing Posture and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle

Whether you are visually assessing someone’s stance or clinically taking a posture picture, the act of telling someone you are observing them changes what you are observing. It’s kind of like what we learned about Heisenberg in physics: looking at an electron means you are forcing a commitment to where it is OR how fast it’s going. And while people aren’t electrons, when you mention posture, most people commit to trying to “stand up straight” by pulling their shoulders back, often stiffening into an unnatural position.

And that’s one of the challenges of assessing posture.

The solution to shift the benchmark of “normal” to their “perception of best normal”. The simple cueing phrase of “Show me your BestPosture” changes their reaction and forces them to assess “What IS normal?”. For the 30% or so of people who still stiffen unnaturally, simply saying “Relax- don’t stiffen, just stand up with your BestPosture” usually gives a baseline to benchmark their posture. Then, whether you are looking at their Annual Posture Picture or a post-treatment comparison, you are factoring in their self awareness and comparing Newtonian apples to apples.