What is a neutral spine?

Is there really a neutral spine?

I talked a bit already about how bad posture really is any posture that you are stuck in for an extended period of time.  What about neutral spine? What is a neutral spine?  What does it look like?  How do we determine what neutral spine is?

Neutral spine will be different for everyone.  If you have a bit of a twist or a curve in your spine, and its been there a while, its nothing to worry about.  Its the way that your bones developed when you were younger.  It is what gives us our variability (why some of us are taller, some of us have longer fingers or toes, or why some of us have toes that point in or out).  None of us look identical.

My definition of neutral spine is what your spine would look like in a relaxed standing or lying posture. Doing a postural assessment on someone can help determine whether something is unusual, but it should be only a small part of a bigger picture.  

Poor alignment changed with different posture

I teach at a college, and I had my class do a bit of an experiment. I asked them whether they thought the shoulders should be level, or whether the dominant shoulder would be higher or lower than the non dominant shoulder (ie, right shoulder is dominant for someone who is right handed).  I had them stand and look at the person next to them.  Most of them were surprised to find that the dominant shoulder (right for most people) was lower than the non dominant shoulder.  If we were doing a postural assessment on each other, we may conclude that the person may have a bend in theirs spine, when in fact there is nothing wrong with their spine! 

Neutral spine is difficult to assess.  Textbook spines are reserved for textbooks.  Assessment of neutral spine should be related to a persons condition or complaint.  Be careful when assessing neutral spine!

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