Greetings!

Atomic Habits is an insightful book, exploring how we build good habits and break bad ones. The concepts have been indelible to me on both a personal level as well as when helping people: from addressing chronic pain pain to activities of daily living to athletes and performers

In chapter 1, author James Clear tells the story of the 2003 British Cycling team and their new coach, Dave Brailsford. Brailsford introduced the concept of 'the aggregation of marginal gains' in which you search for tiny improvements in everything you do. A 1% improvement everyday for a year will lead to a 37% overall improvement over that year. The team went from being mediocre in the realm of world competition to winning the Gold Medal at the next Olympics.

As a Postural Therapist, The Aggregation of Marginal Gains has been a framework in helping people feel, move, and function better long-term. Let's use the example of the woman in the picture below who has been suffering from chronic pain in her knee, hip, and back. Take a moment to look at her posture picture and get an intuitive sense as to what's going on.

Would it be realistic for her to "fix" her body is a session or two OR will take time, dedication, and consistency with goal of addressing the full body mechanism to feel better for the rest of her life?

How can we apply the Aggregation of Marginal Gains to Postural Therapy?

Look at the two pictures of the woman above and below. Notice how:

• Front view: her right leg collapses in, right arm is more rotated than the left, and to protect her weaker right side, she shifts her body weight onto the left side.
• Side view: her lower body shifts forward, upper body collapses back, and head comes forward.

Her compensations might create grinding in the right knee (misalignment), an overuse injury on left left hip (increased load), compression in her spinal discs (collapsing back), and neck tension (muscles overused to keep head up).

In addressing the postural mechanism to help her, an approach I might take would be to sequentially:

Align her body from the side with a position such as the Static Back, as elaborated on in this previous article: https://conta.cc/3XplcBe

• After five minutes of allowing her body to settle and balance in this position, I'd give her a few simple exercises to change the position of her arms and shoulder blades, getting her out of the internal arm rotation.
• Next, she might do knee pillow squeezes (squeezing and releasing on the block) to engage the deep postural line which will strengthen her from the inside-out and subconsciously maintain these adaptations.
• We could conclude with an exercise or two to allow full spinal movement (ie. Cats and Dogs; Cat/Cow). She'd receive this sequence to do on her own to ingrain her body's new alignment.

In sequence two, we might:

• Begin with an Air Bench (squat against the wall, flattening her lower back to mitigate the tension she surely has there from collapsing back on it).
• Next, we could return to Static Back. Now, that's she ingrained basic movements in this position, I could progress her to more challenging exercises that deeply ingrain postural strength.
• We'd conclude with a dynamic exercise or two standing to more strongly promote spinal extension and postural strength.

Once she ingrains these patterns we'd layer a few new ones on top of what she's already created (ie. starting to align her right leg).

Can you see how we're using 1% improvements in helping her long term?

• We're creating new patterns in her body.
• She's reinforcing and ingraining the patterns when doing the sequences on her own.
• The next sequence takes where she is now, keeps the framework or the previous one, and changes a few things (not everything) as progressions.

In addition to using this way of helping people progress on a highly individualized level, I'm utilizing it with the multi-week Postural Therapy programs I'm currently hosting for the Scarsdale Adult School, 92nd St Y, and others. It's helping to create an even greater impact for the participants, which is rewarding for me to see and them to FEEL. This a a framework for which I'll continue to base the upcoming eight-week Postural Therapy Movement Class with the 92nd St Y, which begins on Tuesday, September 9th.

The progress the participants make is truly amazing!! We build upon the aggregate gains each week and at the end of the eight-weeks, the participants are standing, moving, and breathing so much better!

The classes are on Zoom from 11 am - 12 pm EST and recorded for those who can't attend at that time. There's a new registrations system; I can set you up with the right person to guide in signing up. Please find more information in the link below:

This class is separate and parallel to the Scarsdale Adult School online class. We're also beginning a new series online series here which is on Wednesday's for 10-11 am (if that day works better for you). The holidays this year will be factored in with both series and you'll gain from eight full sessions.

You're most welcome to reach out with any questions.

Best.

Joey Zimet EdM, MS

Postural Therapist

(917) 589-5446

joey.zimet@gmail.com