Your hip bone’s connected to your back bone.
Your back bone’s connected to your shoulder bone.
Your shoulder bone’s connected to your neck bone.
Your neck bone’s connected to your head bone.
It’s all connected
It’s all connected and when one bone is off, the others have to be off too. By off I mean uneven or asymmetrical.
How do I know if they’re off?
I assume if you’ve found this article, it’s because you’ve noticed uneven hips or shoulders in yourself or others. But in the rare case you stumbled upon this article, let’s look at a few ways to determine asymmetries in the spine.
DIY Check-Up
- Mirror or Picture test – stand in front of a mirror or take a picture of your side posture and use a gravity line to assess your postural type. Look for
- Shoulder asymmetry
- Rib cage asymmetry
- Pelvis or hips asymmetry
- Knees and leg asymmetry
- Wall Test – Back up against a wall. Heel, butt, shoulders, and head all up against the wall. Try to remain in your normal posture.
- Head – can you comfortably touch the wall?
- Shoulder – does one sit higher than the other, does it feel the same against the wall?
- Pelvis – is there equal pressure on the surface of the wall.
- Leg length test
- Lay on your back. Have someone check to see if your legs are even at the heels and knees.
- Lay on your stomach and do the same as above.
- Clothing fit check.
- Shoulders and arms. Are your sleeves symmetrically? Does one side ride higher?
- Pants. Are your pant lengths symmetrical? Does one side ride higher?
Professional Check-Up
For professional postural evaluations seek the care of either a Doctor of Chiropractic, Doctor of Physical Therapy, some MD’s and DO’s or postural practitioners such as egoscue. Some of the evaluations they will perform are listed below.
- Palpation
- Leg length evaluation
- Adams test
- Radiographs – The Gold Standard
Why the Hunch?
There are many reasons for noticeable asymmetries in your hips, shoulders or spine. The most common reason for spinal asymmetry is posture and functional leg length discrepancies. These are the focus of corrections made in my office and written about in this blog. Scoliosis, as well as true leg length discrepancies, can be helped to varying degrees, but prove to be much harder and need extensive in office treatment. So make an appointment with a local professional for those. For most asymmetries seen, you can make a difference by changing your habits and putting in work doing specific exercises.
Health, homework and habits
The majority of people with asymmetries can help themselves with a little guidance and new routines. Postural habits are essential to the health of your spine which is essential to the health of your nervous system. The nervous system is central to your health.
Your daily routines can build the life of your dreams or destroy them.
Routines Build Dreams
Your habits make or break you when it comes to your health. If you have a curve with no explanation of where it came from, then at least Pay-Attention to one possible cause and at the very least stop making it worse.
Build routines that create diversification in all areas of health. Some of my favorite basic postural exercise routines are 9 Exercises for Upper Crossed Syndrome and 11 Exercises for Lower Crossed Syndrome. These postural exercises are directed at reversing the effects of our everyday sedentary and modern lifestyles.
String Theory
Imagine this. Tie a string to the ground. Pull it up taut and straight, as high as you can go. Now, let it relax and drop it down a foot or two. The less you pull it up, the more the string curves towards the ground. Just like your posture.
Stand up straight. Fight back against the curve imposed upon us by gravity and our laziness. Stand tall like you have a string tied to the top of your head pulling you towards the heavens.
Hold the Line
Likewise, when someone already has an asymmetry, congenital or otherwise, leaning into the curve is easier and more comfortable. Straightening or mirroring the curve is quite uncomfortable. It takes very little effort to make the situation worse and great effort to make it better. Fight against the curve despite the discomfort.
We as humans tend to enjoy comfort and convenience more than hard work. To improve upon your position you will have to face the challenge. Hormesis involves voluntarily facing hard things so that you may improve or become stronger.
Bottom line, If you let the asymmetry win out of convenience or comfort or laziness, it will get worse. If you fight and embrace the struggle, you can improve even if it doesn’t show in degrees, it may show in strength.
Start with the End in Mind
Having Self-Awareness of your structure allows you to not only fix the abnormal presentations but prevent them from ever starting.
Pay-Attention to your posture and how you carry yourself like it matters. Pay-Attention to your kid’s posture and how they carry themselves. It matters more than you know. (Posture and self-esteem links)
Curves may increase, decrease, or stay the same, but your posture can be improved at almost any time in life. Paying attention to your posture is a good initial defense to asymmetries. Paying attention to your posture helps slow the rate of entropy on your physical structure.
“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”
-Chinese Proverb
7 Easy Tips for Uneven Hips and Shoulders
1.) Stand up straight. Use the idea of a string that is centered on your head and pulling you towards the sky. Relaxing your core muscles creates weak abnormal postures. See string theory above.
2.) Practice maintaining a strong core. A strong core isn’t just about how many reps you can do when performing crunches, but also how long you can sustain a strong core. A standing pelvic tilt builds endurance, strengthens your core and decreases your susceptibility to injury. Standing posterior pelvic tilt.
3.) Avoid poor static upright postures. Remember it’s not the one time you do it that matters, it’s the routine that does.
- Joint Stacking – The ease of leaning into one hip or the other creates uneven hips as well as compensation by the surrounding joints and muscles. This lazy posture, if done with some routine, can end up causing or increasing your uneven hips and shoulders.
- Anterior pelvic tilt – This abnormal static posture probably won’t cause uneven hips, but it does create great tension and pain in your back. Especially if you already have an asymmetry. This is very common in Lower Crossed Syndrome often caused by sitting.
- Rounded shoulders and back – Again, this abnormal static posture probably won’t cause an asymmetry, but it definitely can’t help with the pain. Rounded shoulders and a hunch back leads to a question mark like posture. This is commonly seen in Upper Crossed Syndrome. Check out my latest article on Cervical Syndrome.
4.) Sit up straight. Again, use the idea of a taut string arising from the center of your head and being pulled up towards the heavens. See the string theory section above.
5.) Avoid poor sitting postures
- Again joint stacking can be a problem here. Most will allow their mid-back to round until the muscles, ligaments, and joints stop it passively. Rounding forward or leaning from one side to the other will create stress and strain on the joints. This is especially damaging to an already pronounced curve.
- Crossing your legs repetitively to one side will also create patterns of muscle imbalances that encourage leg length differences and can cause problems for the surrounding compensatory joints. It’s not the occasional leg crossing that is damaging, it’s the repetition.
6.) Sleep straight on your back. I prefer a stiff mattress for keeping the body in the coronal plane. Pillow tops can create some cushion for comfort. The bottom line is sleeping positions on your stomach or your side, when done repetitively, will create asymmetrical patterns of the spine and the surrounding muscles.
7.) Get Adjusted. Chiropractors have been shown to help scoliosis curve outcomes as well as palliative care for the symptoms that may arise. Movement is life. Movement can be the catalyst of change. Especially when referring to biomechanical changes. Here are 12 Reasons your Body Needs Movement and many reasons why a Chiropractor is best trained to help resolve these issues.
The Takeaway
Uneven hips and shoulders can have numerous causes.
The most common of which is posture related.
It has been shown that asymmetries of the spine (less than 10 degrees) can cause chronic pain.
Abnormal curvatures in the spine lead to alterations of biomechanics which contributes to pain and early arthritis. It literally speeds up the aging process of entropy in the long term.
Intervention with chiropractic, ergonomic education, exercises, and new routines can make a difference in the short term and long term.
Self-Awareness of your postures and the way you carry yourself every day can prevent some curvatures of the spine as well as prevent them from increasing in severity in some cases.
One Adjustment Action Step
- Understand how your posture plays a role in increasing, decreasing, or causing asymmetries in the first place. Implement various postural exercises I have listed in past blog posts.
- Read up on how Movement affects all systems of the body. Understand that asymmetries will impact the way you move.
- Practice Self-Awareness of your postures in all positions.
Improving your life can be made One Adjustment at a time.
Fancy gizmos, gadgets, and complex systems aren’t always the answer when it comes to health.
Health comes from within and health isn’t man-made.
Knowing how to create a plan for your health can improve your life dramatically.
We will be discussing how to become Self-Aware of what your body needs and the why behind it in the next few blog posts. The Self-Awareness Roadmap.
Cheers,
Nick the DC
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