You’re kidding me? You mean being right-handed is bad for my health?
Well…yes, actually. Back, shoulder, hip, and knee problems are frequently rooted in our everyday right-handed actions. As right-handers we do not give thought to how we pick up objects, open doors, operate technology or even fold our arms. But if you are one of the ninety percent of the world’s population that is a ‘righty’ (source: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, 2024), you should; your future well-being depends on it.
Life is designed for right-handers. Everyday objects like scissors, notebooks, and can openers are made for righties. Skeptical? Then check-out stores like Lefty’s in San Francisco. You will be surprised by the range of objects specifically designed and marketed for left-handers. Conversely, everyday objects designed for right-handers perpetuate the use of the right side of the body.
Right-handers’ postural holding patterns
The adjacent image shows two spirals of muscle holding, one at the front (anterior) of the body and the other at the rear (posterior). This double-spiral illustration is based on the work of the Australian-born anatomist, Professor Raymond Dart (1893-1988).
Right-handers overwhelmingly twist from the left to the right. The left shoulder, torso, and hip rotate to the right as the head, too, tilts in that direction. The right shoulder drops and the right hip rises, shortening muscles on that side of the body. The right foot sometimes splays out further than the left in response to disproportionate weight being driven through the right leg. These postural features often exhibit themselves in people diagnosed with spinal scoliosis or twist.
While lefties do something similar as a mirror image, these one-in-ten folk are comparatively less left-centric. Their daily requirement to live in a world designed for righties compels, to a degree, the balancing out of their habitual right to left twist.
Dart’s unique contribution was to identify these commonly held muscular spirals. The reasons why we develop these debilitating postural traits was the life’s work of another Australian-born anatomical virtuoso, F.M. Alexander (1869-1955). Alexander discovered that how we sit, stand, and move routinely causes compression and rotational holding. These postural distortions originate from the habitual position of our heads in relation to our neck and back. To prevent and remedy this effect, Alexander developed a practical method. The eponymous Alexander Technique teaches how to lengthen and widen from the head in everyday activity, instead of pulling ourselves down and across. After surprisingly few Alexander Technique sessions, we learn how to release chronic muscle and joint holding. In right-handers, the habitual left to right rotation of the shoulder, torso, and hip becomes less marked. This combination of directional lengthening and widening as well as muscle and joint release, in effect, begins to change a lifetime of learned postural habits. For right-handers, in particular, this results in considerably less pain and greater mobility.
Over the past twenty years a number of clinical trials have sought to assess the efficacy of the Alexander Technique. In 2008 the prestigious medical journal BMJ published the findings of one such 579-subject, randomized clinical trial. Dominating the BMJ’s front page for that edition, its review reported that 24 Alexander Technique sessions resulted in an 86% sustained decrease in participants’ chronic back pain. Other clinical trials of the Alexander Technique suggest efficacy with chronic neck pain and Parkinson’s Disease.
Nadal: left-hander in tennis, right-hander in life
Playing a sport that involves holding a piece of equipment -a racquet, golf club, or bat- accentuates the left to right twist of the body for right handers. Runners, gym rats, and yoga practitioners are not immune either. Profoundly ingrained bodily twists affect how people exercise, favoring their right sides in lifting, stretching, and stepping. With enough practice it is possible for an athlete to become proficient using a traditionally non-dominant side.
Rafael Nadal, the elite Spanish tennis player, is a natural right-hander who was coached to excel on the tennis court using his left. As a result, his inevitable left-handed extreme tennis twist was balanced in part by the opposite twist of his body in the use of his right hand in non-tennis life. By changing his dominant racquet hand, Nadal gained a tactical playing advantage. Additionally, he likely extended the duration of his playing career and aided his well-being.
Michelangelo’s Rebellious Slave from 1513, housed in the Louvre, Paris
Education provides a key to the effective management of musculoskeletal pain and immobility. Right-handers can improve their body balance by learning to use their left hand more for life’s routine activities. This learning should start at an early age. Moreover, it could be reinforced by a much more informed approach to postural health in the training of all physical education teachers, nurses, and physicians. Meantime, there does appear consensus among medical researchers that parts of the right-side of the brain control movement of the left arm and leg. If this relationship is encouraged through the teaching of music, drama, and art -as Betty Edwards’ popular Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain contends- so much the better. Perhaps a middle school study course on Michelangelo’s Renaissance counterpose marble sculpture, Rebellious Slave, might be an interesting introduction to art, anatomy, and postural health!
According to the CDC, in 2021 an estimated almost 52 million Americans experienced chronic pain and over 17 million (7% of all U.S. adults) experienced chronic pain that resulted in substantial restriction of daily activities. These folk were often braced, prescribed powerful pain suppressant drugs, and/or subjected to invasive surgery. A more functional, cost-effective approach lies with information. A practical understanding of how to remedy right-left imbalance, muscle holding, and habitual patterns of sitting, standing, and moving empowers people. For public health, such rudimentary knowledge would help prevent much of the chronic musculoskeletal pain of those 52 million Americans.
Perhaps the last word should go to Professor Raymond Dart. In his last ever interview Dart commented pithily: The future lies with the ambidextrous human.