Think about the famous statue of David for a second. 

This is a very common standing pattern for the average human but the reason why so many people stand like this isn’t well known.

Your breathing muscle, the diaphragm is significantly bigger, more muscular and has better leverage to contract on the right side as opposed to the left. 

One of the reasons for this is because it’s sitting on top of your liver, which is on the right side of your body and not your left.

To avoid going down an anatomy rabbit hole, let me tell you why this matters.

When you inhale, the diaphragm descends.

When you exhale, it comes back up.

The contraction of the diaphragm (descending on inhalation) produces a game of tug-of-war between the left and right diaphragm.

Who’s going to win that game of tug-of-war?

The right side! Every time.

Well, the issue is that you take 22,000 breaths every single day. After a few decades, you’ve racked up a few hundred million reps all with a slight twist to the right side.

This is how you naturally end up standing like David. This is how we all do.

If you look at David, you can see his right abs are shortened and contracted and his left abs are lengthened. 

You can see something similar happening in his neck. The right neck is long and the left neck is short.

Because of this imbalance, you have a left and right side of the body perpetually doing different things. 

If you can understand this, you can start to solve, previously unsolvable pain by knowing why a muscle might be vulnerable.

We had a woman come in yesterday with right knee pain. It was on the inner knee. While there may not be a specific incident that caused the pain, based on these asymmetries, I understand the unique vulnerabilities of that area.

I know that the right adductor (which attaches right where she was pointing) is typically in a shortened, contracted state. This is going to pull her knee inwards. I can also confirm that by simply watching her walk.

If she has flat feet, which she did, you can also see how the collapsing arch is going to send that knee inwards as well.

We want to act quickly to give her support in her shoe to prevent that foot collapse and then we have to put in the work to shift her pelvis off her right leg (which stretches the adductor) and on to her left. 

There is, of course, a global training program involved with making this new pattern stick.

Want to Work with Saint Bartholomew? Use the links below to explore our programs.

Want to Learn More About Saint Bartholomew Can Help You? Use the links below to explore or free learning resources.