[Click! Health] Joint Health Starts with Posture Balance

(Photo by Himchan Hospital)

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Chun-hee] In the era of living to 100, maintaining joint health is essential for enjoying a pain-free and healthy old age. Strong joints should be maintained through proper posture, but people rarely pay attention to their posture until serious problems arise, often harming their health with poor posture.

Everyone naturally adopts certain postures. If these postures are incorrect and are repeated frequently, it causes problems in joints and muscles. Accumulated issues from poor posture can lead to arthritis, especially in weight-bearing areas such as the knees, hips, and ankles, which are vulnerable to bad posture.

Many have experienced temporary knee pain when standing up after squatting for a long time. The squatting posture, often adopted during housework, places about 8 to 9 times the body weight load on the knees. Dr. Kwon Tae-yoon, an orthopedic surgeon at Gangbuk Himchan Hospital, explained, “When sitting with bent knees, synovial fluid does not sufficiently penetrate the cartilage, causing stiffness and impact on the knees when standing up, which can damage the cartilage. The cartilage in the stressed areas may wear down, so the more one lives in a squatting posture, the higher the risk of arthritis.”

The cross-legged sitting posture, familiar to Koreans as yangbanda-ri, also puts strain on the joints. Yangbanda-ri causes both hip joints to spread outward, tightening surrounding ligaments and muscles and putting stress on the hip joints. This can lead to hip arthritis or dislocation, and crossing the legs twists the leg shape and pelvis, causing numbness or pain in compressed areas. It induces pelvic asymmetry, resulting in differences in leg length, and weight that should be evenly distributed on both legs concentrates on one leg, potentially leading to knee cartilage damage.

Sometimes, people twist their waist side to side while seated to stretch their lower back. Such movements can twist the spine and push the disc toward the nerves. The more sudden the movement, the greater the pressure, which can cause tears in the annulus fibrosus surrounding the disc.

If you find it comfortable to slouch, stand with weight on one leg, or sit with your hips pushed back and leaning on the backrest, proper posture may actually feel uncomfortable. Dr. Yoon Ki-sung, a neurosurgeon at Mokdong Himchan Hospital, explained, “If bad posture causes discomfort, that’s normal, but if it feels more comfortable, it means the body has already deformed that way.” The spine, which should maintain an S-shape, is deviating. Even if it feels uncomfortable, you should consciously try to maintain body balance. Since unconscious postures can affect all parts of the body, attention is necessary. It is good to reduce sitting in one position for long periods and to move the body frequently.

Before getting a checkup at a hospital, there is a way to assess your posture and body balance at home. Hang a vertical string in front of a full-length mirror to check for left-right symmetry of the body or observe whether the eyes, shoulders, and pelvis are level with the ground. Sit on a hard chair with a backrest, place your hips at the edge of the chair, keep your back and shoulders straight, and extend your arms to check for differences in length between sides. Also, when sitting with feet flat on the floor and legs together, check if there is a difference in knee height. Differences in leg length or pelvic asymmetry may not be visible externally, but if the length of the feet or the angle at which the feet spread differs when both legs are fully extended, it can be suspected.