Let me tell you a story that perfectly illustrates what I call the Dakin Effect. It's a phenomenon most of the medical world is still blind to: all exercise is not created equal. One man's medicine can indeed be another man's poison. In fact, sometimes the same exercise might be beneficial for one side of your body but harmful for the other!
One of the best examples of the Dakin Effect from my practice happened nearly 30 years ago. I shared this story in The Body Mechanic’s Handbook, but it's worth repeating. It involves a middle-aged man who had been suffering from relentless lower back pain for 25 long years. When I assessed his standing posture, I noticed something unusual: his pelvis was tilting backward. This isn’t a common postural pattern.
Curious about how he ended up this way, I started asking him questions. As we talked, he suddenly had an epiphany. He recalled that 25 years earlier, his Tai Chi sensei had instructed him to stand with his "tailbone tucked under." Eureka! He had been deliberately creating this posterior pelvic tilt for a quarter of a century!
I explained to him that while this is a useful strategy if your pelvis tends to tilt too far forward, there is a healthy range of pelvic tilt. Unfortunately, he had been unknowingly pushing his pelvis out of this healthy range for decades.
While his sensei was undoubtedly a Tai Chi expert, this advice had been disastrous for my patient’s posture. Once he understood this, he stopped tilting his pelvis backward. And guess what? His lower back pain began to subside shortly after.
This story is a powerful reminder: don’t fall into the same trap! Whether you’re already a patient or just considering becoming one, get your posture assessed.
Learn what you need to keep your "wheels" aligned. Life is too short to suffer needlessly.
Yours in health,
Geoff Dakin
