Me - Alex Plank - do others move like us?

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I am a person who has back problems. Made worse by car accidents.
The experts could not help - and as a typical aspie response - found my own solutions.
I have trained myself to observe posture in others - and to use this to change my own posture.

I recently saw a vid where Alex plank was lecturing and I was shocked because his posture so exactly mirrored my own that it was like watching myself.
It was ... very positive in that it allowed me to work out some parts of my own posture which I needed to change.

But I sat wondering ... three of the eight people I know with ASD have the same posture problems. I include Alex as I have seen him.

Do others have it?
And if so - what does it mean?

Have you look for pictures showing what this posture is on the internet? And if so. Can you post them here on WP.

Sorry - I have almost NO pictures of myself. None with movement which is what you need.
There are plenty of vids of Alex.

Myself and a 70 year old friend are changing our posture - in ways that have never been done before. We have developed our own language - and our tools are biofeedback and a strong image of the posture change we desire - and a lot of "hand on experience in changing." It is more a skill - like mountain climbing - you just have to do it. No matter the trainer - it is up to you to do it.

Trying to put this into words is a bit ... difficult - so I will try my best. But it will probably come out like turn left, turn right, listen, cat dog, jump.


Try looking at the lack of movement in the up/down of the feet. No spring.
The half twist counter-clockwise in the middle of the back when the turn is not complete.
The slight forward roll on the shoulders, and the head slightly forward.

My "model" for posture is to envisage myself as a four legged animal (a lion, a dog - a cat) and the movement I would do on four legs - and then translate it into the upright. The tail equals the coccyx and the movement - semi-automatic in the four legged animal - is partly automatic in the human and partly learned.

In this case - the movement is "a dog with its tail between the legs."
It walks - stiffly, a bit jerkily, a bit ... clumsy - fighting its own natural grace.

The changes I am doing to the posture literally mimics this - opening the coccyx from within, allowing the movement in the middle of the back including a half turn - and releasing the neck and shoulders. I am expecting the normal power and grace that others have and I lacked.

The other person with this condition is my father and he is now dying after two hip replacements, inability to lift his hands over his heads - and a host of problems because they can only fix joints, not posture. And I cannot help him because
1) he has the answers (typical aspie)
2) it is more painful to change your body than people realize.
He has not the inclination, the desire, nor the time to recover.

Sorry - I told you it would not come out right.
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I would bet that Alex did something to improve his posture.

Alex, I hope you respond to this.

I presume Alex does gym work - both because of his musculature and also because of some of his remarks on other threads.
The same is true of my father - except his gym work was the labour he did. Very strong.
I was far weaker.

But unfortunately gym work does not change posture. It changes the core muscle strength - not the posture. It is why such work does not permit someone injured to recover, merely to prevent deterioration.

Posture is the holy grail of physiotherapy - and they have failed to attain it - as has everyone else before them.
It requires a different ... model.

I have a different model - and it has better outcomes than any to date. But until full recovery ... it is just another model. I am onto version 26 at this time. Or is it 33? I stopped counting at about 16.
I ... think ... that seeing Alex might be the key I was looking for. But I have said that before. Many times.

I haven't really ever thought too much about my posture but I have noticed that lots of people have different postures. Maybe looking at a computer screen more than most people would result in some aspies having a similar posture.

I've done years and years of Tai Chi to correct very bad posture I had as a child. Anyway, due to a growth disorder I suffer from, where the spacings between the lumbar discs in the spine are too narrow, age has finally caught up with me and I'm only capable now of performing the most basic of Tai Chi movements. I've been on strong medication for sciatica which I'm slowly trying to ween myself off. The only thing left to me is to diet to reduce the weight on my spine and to do a few back exercises on the floor before going to bed.

In my early 20s I worked hard at changing my posture and eye contact. It was a lot of work, but people noticed the results and complimented me on it.

This sort of posture was set as babies - at about the time we learned to walk.
A tad too early for computer screens.
Or for blame setting.
We are what we are.

You can see why this interests me. Different babies walking in a similar way indicates a similar cause.

I do not think it is genetic - in fact I know it is not genetic - though genetics might play a part.

There are three separate ... internal spin actions in the body. They are set in the involuntary muscles. The direction of the spin (clockwise, counter-clockwise) sets up left handed or right handed ... right foot leading or left foot leading (so called goofy foot)
The third is the sway rotation - and ours was not working.

None of these rotations are genetic. They are learned as babies - and can, surprisingly enough - be relearned as adults if you have the right model.
If you don't have the right model, you will get the conventional wisdom that it cannot be changed.

"Curiouser and curiouser" said Alice.

Have you ever looked into Alexander technique?
I have chronic back problems so I had been trying to sort out if postural issues were making things worse.
The tactics in Alexander technique may prove useful if you are trying to sort out posture issues.

My techniques is very similar to that one. It was built upon the same idea - to observe our own movement. But mine was built entirely independent - it was only when my mate said "That is like the Alexander technique" that I learned of its existence.
But mine goes a lot further.

And that technique merely controls movement - it does not show how to reverse it.

A quickie to show the difference - two seconds.
Straighten up.

You just stood up, pulled back your shoulders - pulled in your gut - lifted your head ...

Why? By tightening muscles - you force yourself into an upright position.
But you are in balance, there are muscles pulling you up and muscles which work in the opposite direction.

Stand up again and this time do NOT tighten up.

Now put your hands at the top of your rib cage at the front.
just relax those muscles at the front.

It takes a while - depending on how experienced you are at biofeedback to relax muscles - but I can do it in about four - five seconds.
you end up by straighten up again. Slowly.

Why do you instinctively choose to tighten - rather than instinctively to relax?

Answer - tighten is direct, immediate and is caused by a mechanism in the muscles which says "tighten."
Relax is to remove the cause to tighten, and allow time for the muscle to stop tightening.
One is direct, immediate. The other is slow, cumbersome and does not always work.

We have LEARNED to control our body by tightening muscles.
It is the instinctive - evolutionary path.
The path I took was to learn to relax the muscles to do the things you want.
It is counter instinctive and counter intuitive.

Version one of my my model. It works but ... oh how much is missing.

I can see how with enough determination it would be possible to normalise one's posture, and it might be very interesting to have a go, comparing videos of self and others.

In my case it doesn't seem to cause enough trouble to make me want to go to the effort of changing. I was given a couple of criticisms about my posture when I was younger, something about walking a bit strangely and slouching when I sit. There's two problems from bad posture, one being the social stigma, the other being the physical health effects.

For social stigma, I like to think it's possible to simply avoid people who would judge me on posture. What kind of horrible person would be so prejudiced and dismissive anyway? Yet even my brain registers that something's not quite right when I see people standing a bit oddly. A friend of mine stands in a strange, lop-sided way, and I always feel like finding a solution to it, I keep wondering exactly what it is that's non-standard, and whether there's a way of making it a bit more symmetrical or harmonious, and I wonder whether my friend might feel more confident and get more co-operation from others if the "problem" were put right.

As for health effects, the only one I know anything about is back problems, and I don't know much about those. I've had occasional lower back pain, including sciatica, but the problems have always been transient. I was reading the other day that not all of us have the modern human gene for walking on two legs, i.e. some of us still have the monkey gene and are therefore genetically prone to back problems. And I've also read that Aspies often seem to look a little bit like monkeys.

Frankly I'm so uncomfortable in my own body generally (because of hypersensitivity) that my "natural" posture often seems like the only one I can do without making myself feel worse, at least in the short term. Given that I've not had a lot of severe physical problems over my life, I guess there's little for me to worry about, and I suspect that my slouching habit is fairly safe - when I slouch, the shape of my back is a fairly gentle curve and it's usually more horizontal than vertical. I suspect that much of the health trouble comes from keeping the back vertical for too long - in terms of the evolutionary theory, it's asking for trouble to have a vertical back. I never feel quite right standing or sitting upright, and I take every opportunity to slouch, recline or lie down.

The one thing I try to do for it is yoga - just a cat stretch and trikonasana, which I think keeps my spine reasonably supple and irons out minor aches and pains. My father had to have a hip replacement, which worked out very well for him. I like to think I won't need one, because all his life he'd tended to overwork himself by carrying heavy loads, which may have worn his bones out prematurely. I've had my moments with carrying heavy loads, but normally I limit myself to carrying about 5 kilos of groceries for about a mile.

I am sorry it has been a while - but I have been changing because of this vid. It is ... painful, slow, long term and it is not over yet. This path to recovery was so ... debilitating that I was forced into "survival mode" including cutting myself off from everyone.

None the less, I have found a few things - just for interest.
The first is that others with more severe physical defects who have a more severe version of this condition. I happened to watch a comedy show where two of the three comedians had such conditions. One had "paddle hands." The other, high upper body strength and very definite lack in the lower body.

Both of these two comedians would sit down - immediately lift their left leg and put it under their right buttock. It was instinctive, automatic.

Further out on the "deformity" line, a person I happen to know with spina bifida (surgically corrected) had an even worse posture - on the same basis.

I have concluded it is a line of physical development between "normal" and "failure to develop correctly" and myself and Alex are "on the border" - mostly developed but a movement not activated. These others are on the "failed to develop correctly" side of the line.

I am unsure if I ought to think about the problem of myself and Alex as "hardware" in the body, or "software" as a movement which we ought to do was never activated.

I do know it is VERY hard to get yourself to move correctly when you have NEVER learned to move correctly.
It is as though I was curled in the foetal position as a baby in the womb and when it was time to uncurl (after I was born) - I did not fully do so. I adapted to the "not quite uncurled" state.

If I am correct - then I can add a few things. it would explain why some people with Autism are known to be clumsy in both fine and gross motor skills.

It would also "tie in" with things like gluten intolerance and other food conditions. They know "there is a link" - specifically to carpel tunnel syndrome ... they just do not know WHY there is a link.
This condition would naturally cause carpel tunnel syndrome.

The mental aspects ... it is like noise on the brain. Distracting and wasting mental resources. Could be a contributing factor about having autism.

Correcting it is "advanced bio-feedback."
No quick "two minute answer."

And finally - just because it is impossible and has never been done before is no excuse. It is possible. There is always "the first." In this case, me.

Ah well. Some bloody fool idiot has to be first.
it is all "data" on who and what we are.
And being the selfish snot I am - the only thing I am interested is ... "myself" and to find answers which work for me.
So I am going to finish learning how to move my body which I ought to have done as a baby.

Ouch.