How Complementary Methods Work With Posture Therapy [Video]

How does posture therapy work alongside complementary and alternative healing?

Many clients wonder how posture therapy fits alongside treatments like chiropractic care, acupuncture, physical therapy, and massage. The short answer is that it works well with all of them. Posture alignment therapy addresses muscle imbalances, reinforces proper alignment, and helps the results of other treatments last longer.

For example, chiropractic adjustments realign bones, but posture therapy trains the muscles to hold those adjustments, which often reduces how frequently you need to go back. Similarly, acupuncture and massage release tension, and posture exercises keep the muscles engaged and functional afterward, extending the relief.

Physical therapy complements posture work by focusing on a specific injury or body part, while posture therapy keeps the whole body aligned during recovery. Communicating with your practitioners helps everything work together — whether that means combining exercises, sequencing them before or after treatment, or sharing feedback between therapists. Think of us as part of your pit crew.

If you are combining several therapies, tell us. We will tailor your posture alignment program around them so you get the most out of each one.

Video transcript

A conversation between three Activ8 Posture therapists about a question clients ask constantly.

Hi everyone. I had a really interesting question this week from one of my clients, and after talking to Miranda and Carrie Ann, they have received this question as well. It’s: “How does posture therapy work with other holistic therapies like chiropractic care, acupuncture, physical therapy, and massage?” Anyone want to take that first?

Well, I will. This is probably a top question for very new clients, or people who are just calling to find out, because they want to know if it’s okay. And that’s an amazing question to ask, because some trainers will say: if you’re doing my thing, don’t do anything else. As a company we don’t have a rule around that, and I certainly think you can do all the modalities.

I tend to think we work really nicely with chiropractors, because they push the bones into place, and then you need to solidify that with the muscular work. If you’re someone in an extreme nine out of ten amount of pain, you will get more immediate relief in that moment by having your bones pushed into place. And then you need to not just go and see them every three days — you need to go home and do the routine you get from us, which trains your muscles to hold those bones in that position. So that modality especially works really well with us.

Now, if you’re somebody who’s been coming to us for a while, you probably don’t need to see your chiropractor as often. That’s pretty common. The longer we have people, the less they see their chiropractor. I think that’s a sign that what you’re doing is really working and your muscles are firing.

And stuff happens — you might need to go see them. So for emergent care, if you’re in a lot of pain, chiropractic, yes. The same can be true of massage. I’m a person who goes every four to six weeks and gets a massage, just because I work out a lot and need to loosen up my muscles, and I do my routines every day.

I stretch and strengthen and do all the things, but the fascia in your body is like wearing a nylon of connective tissue. Sometimes things just get caught up in there, and it’s very helpful to get that massaged out. How about you two?

Yeah. I think it’s great that you brought up the coexisting of these other practices, especially chiropractic. A lot of my new clients continue to see their chiropractors as well. I tell them the same thing: muscles are what move bones. They’re physically moving the bones. The more functional you get — the more you’re working those muscles — the longer those adjustments will stay.

I’ve noticed with longer-term clients they’re not seeing their chiropractor as much. The two work well together because we’re both trying to do the same thing. And massage, as you said, as an emergency thing — I can get a massage if I’m super tight.

Same here. I encourage everybody who’s currently doing any type of holistic work to continue, and hopefully taper off — so if they’re seeing the chiropractor weekly it becomes biweekly, then once a month. It is a shortcut in a sense: if your arm or something is out of place and you can get it back in place, you’ll have more range to actually do your exercises effectively. Same with acupuncture and bodywork. If the fascia and muscles are so knotted and twisted that you need someone to help work out those tangles — and it feels good. I love massages.

Having that manual work done can also be really healing, not just physically. Whenever I see my chiropractor or acupuncturist or massage therapist, it’s time for me to offload everything and get my emotional things out at the same time. So it helps overall in that holistic sense — the emotional side as well as the body coming into better alignment.

And I forgot to mention acupuncture, so I’m glad you did. The meridian lines are huge there. It’s almost like acupuncture gives your body an outlet to let go of something you’ve been holding on to. It’s really interesting that somebody could be working with us on their shoulder, get a release in their foot, and then suddenly say: all that work on my shoulder, I feel it moving now.

They really do go along nicely. And for me as a therapist, I’ll sometimes use what their chiropractor says, or how often they’re going, as a gauge of how I’m doing. If somebody has been seeing a chiropractor for years and says “I’m always twisted, they always have to put me on the blocks and get me back in place” — I love when they come in after six weeks and say their chiropractor told them their hips are good and there isn’t much left to do there.

We have a few acupuncturists, chiropractors and massage therapists that we refer out to, at least in Boston. We have a relationship with them so we can talk about what we’re each seeing in someone’s body. I encourage that. You need to think of us and your other practitioners as your team keeping you going.

We’re your pit crew, and anybody wearing your jacket should be able to talk to each other and work together to make the best you there is. So I’m always happy when somebody says they’re going to see their massage therapist and asks whether there’s anything they should pass along.

It’s also a nice way for us to find really solid practitioners we can recommend to other clients. So we’re pro all the other people. Any other thoughts? I think physical therapy was in that question too.

Oh yes, physical therapy. Depending on your physical therapist, your insurance and what they’re allowed to do, it complements what we do well. At physical therapy they can do a lot of manual work, and they have far more equipment available — TENS, tables, the compression boots.

Things we don’t have here, and everything that can take a step forward in your health. Again, depending on your therapist: if they’re only working on your knee, well, what about the rest of your body? That’s where it works well in conjunction with us, because we’re going to address the hip and the shoulder and the things contributing to that knee issue in the first place. And if there’s communication, even better.

I’ve had a lot of new clients start out asking whether they can keep doing their PT exercises alongside what we’re doing here. I say that’s absolutely great, and I love that there’s communication, so we can talk about what they’re doing with the PT and how it fits with what we’re doing.

Whether that means we integrate them, or you do one before the other, you still get the benefit of those specific PT exercises — while making sure your body is aligned going into them.

Thinking about the order of things matters. In general you want to do the routine you get from us before activity, because it puts you in the best position. But if I know you’re getting a massage, I might have you do certain things beforehand, and then reactivate a few things afterwards — because massage can let everything go.

If we’ve been working on your glutes or your rhomboids, whatever it is, and they’ve just been fully released, you might need a couple of exercises after the massage to switch things back on. A massage is an hour, or an hour and a half if you’re being indulgent, and it can work on tension that’s been sitting there for months. You may need to move through that joint or muscle a little so what was released doesn’t just settle back down. The worst outcome is feeling great for a day and then relapsing.

So if you are doing other modalities, tell us and tell your therapist, because we can make some genuinely useful suggestions so everything works together.

And that’s one of the good things about what we do — we can work around any feedback you give us, from any other modality, as long as you’re communicating with us. Then we can make sure everything we’re doing is built around your body and what it’s actually doing week to week.

Experience relief with a personalized approach

Tired of chasing symptoms? Posture therapy works alongside chiropractic care, acupuncture, massage and physical therapy to address the alignment underneath the pain rather than competing with them.

Schedule your free consultation and posture assessment — thirty minutes, no cost, and nothing to decide on the call. Tell us what else you’re doing and we’ll build the program around it.