How your spine is like a guitar

Let's look at why your spine is like a guitar...

Here’s some guitar anatomy: At the top are tuning pegs, where the strings are wound or loosened to create the proper pitch for that string. The neck of the guitar extends down the body of the guitar, and the strings end at the bridge, which holds them in place.

If you play a chord on the strings, at any place along the neck of the guitar, it changes the tension on all the strings that are held down, to create a new pitch.

In your spine, the tension is controlled by the spinal CORD – which is information pathway of the nervous system.

Tension in your spinal cord – not the vertebrae or bones of your spine – increases when you’re stretched or bent FORWARD, and tension decreases when you arch backwards.

Imagine that you’re reaching down to touch your toes. You’ve just increased tension on your spinal CORD from your skull to your pelvis – the places where the spinal cord is anchored, just like the tuning pegs and the bridge of a guitar. If you do the opposite action, arching backwards like in a backbend, you’ve decreased the tension.

What’s our posture usually like? We’re bent FORWARD. We reach FORWARD. We bend our head down / forward when we look at our phones throughout the day.

Tension in our neck is the culprit for a gamut of problems throughout our body. If your neck is bent forward or is straight instead of having a proper curve, then you’re guaranteed to have tight hamstrings, tight Achilles tendons, tight plantar fascia, tight hip flexors. You can’t escape low back pain if you have a straight neck or a neck that juts forward all day. No matter how much ice, heat, massage, stretching or strengthening you do for your low back – you’re not going to fix the problem unless you develop proper posture starting at your neck.

Remember – better posture, better brain, better life!