This test is one of my favorite ways to assess how the body works with gravity because it’s simple and easy to do!
When your heels touch the wall, you’re assessing how your entire body stacks up, or for most people, how your body doesn’t stack up.
What most will find, is a forward shift away from the wall in some way.
You might have just the hips shift forward but the upper body is touching the wall.
You might have just the hips touching the wall and your shoulders and head are shifted forward.
You might feel one side of your body is touching the wall and the other is shifted forward (this is rotation).
Think about how hard your muscles have to work holding a weight out in front of you compared to when the weight is held down by your side.
When your joints shift forward, your muscular system has to tense up to work harder because your body is out of vertical alignment.
This can make your muscles feel tight, tense, and stiff.
The go to default for most is to feel this muscle tension and stretch these tight muscles…but the muscles are only tightening up in response to the vertical position being out of alignment. This is why most people feel like their tight muscles go back to being tight and don’t feel day over day progress.
The goal is to restore the function of your body so you can without effort, thought, or force, stand up against that wall and feel everything flush against it!
Give it a try — what did you discover?! What do you think this has to do with how you feel or move?