Schroth Method

Elongate and De-rotate Your Spine

Schroth Exercises Are Customized for Your Unique Spinal Deformation. The method teaches you how to:

• Correct spinal rotation and increase lung capacity with a rotational breathing technique.
• Help restore normal spinal position with pelvic corrections, breathing technique, and stabilizing isometric contractions.
• Improve your posture during routine daily living, not just during therapy.

Scoliotic Imbalances and Rotations

For at least fifty years, clinical studies of scoliosis frequently have reported paraspinal muscle imbalances of strength, diameter, length, fiber type, or electromyographic activity. They support the Schroth thesis that scoliosis always involves asymmetrical muscle groups in the back and elsewhere, which in normal bodies are more evenly symmetrical.

In a typical scoliotic configuration, depicted at right, back musculature pulls lower ribs so that the lumbar (abdominal) region rotates laterally, downwards, and backwards.

To maintain the torso’s upright and forward orientation, the thoracic (chest) region must twist back in the opposite directions, and the cervical (neck) area responds with a third abnormal twist. Other imbalances are often present in the legs and feet. The resulting eccentric loads predispose the scoliosis to a vicious cycle of progression with unpredictable outcome.

In its effort to reverse the scoliotic spinal rotations, the Schroth method of scoliosis exercise therapy addresses all three planes — sagittal, frontal, and transverse. This means that correction needs to occur not only from side to side and front to back, but also longitudinally: that is, the spine which has shortened because of rotation must also be lengthened. Hence the Schroth method’s designation as “three-dimensional” therapy.

Correcting Scoliotic Posture

The Schroth method places great emphasis on conscious correction of posture during routine daily living, not only during strenuous exercise periods. Each patient learns about her or his own body and what she/he has to do in order to reverse and control abnormal posture so that improved posture becomes a habit.

The following photos show a female patient with a very severe case (over 100-degree curve).

Patient’s natural posture with more than a 100-degree curve

Conscious posture correction

On the left she slumps, not thinking about her posture, and unconsciously allows the three torso sections to become exaggerated and clearly recognizable. Her thoracic section is clearly twisted against the lumbar region, and her shoulder-cervical region compensates with a counter-rotation against the thoracic section. This reversion to faulty, scoliotic posture is akin to performing a wrong exercise. Left uncorrected, the posture could allow the deformity to progress further.

In the photo on the right, she corrects her posture as far as possible. She uses the chair’s back rest to widen her concave left side and fills it out further with the Schroth rotational breathing technique. By correcting her posture, she not only improves her appearance, becoming somewhat straighter and taller, but also increases her lung capacity and reduces the tendency for posture-related pain to develop.

*Information taken from https://www.schrothmethod.com/about-schroth-method