Technique · 2 min read
Why duration matters more than the angle
Creep phenomenon, sustained flexion.
What “creep” means in spinal tissue
Spinal ligaments and discs are viscoelastic — held in a stretched position, they slowly deform and lose stiffness over 10 to 20 minutes. Solomonow’s lab, working with instrumented lumbar spines in the early 2000s, showed that recovery from this creep takes hours, not minutes, and that creep changes how the surrounding muscles fire even after you have changed position.
The practical translation
A perfect 5-minute slouch is less of a load history than 25 minutes of “almost good” posture. The spine does not have a duration-independent angle threshold — both terms matter, and duration is often the more honest one.
Why scores can be misleading
It is easy to chase a peak number. A session that touches 95 a handful of times but spends most of its minutes at 70 is not a 95 session. The body integrates over time.
How Plumb uses this
Insights does not reward your peak score — it rewards your time in neutral. A 25-minute session that hovered at 80 will read better than one that pinged 95 a few times in the same window. The neutral-time figure on the post-session report is the one to watch.
Plumb is a wellness and posture-awareness tool, not a medical device. It doesn’t diagnose, treat, or monitor any condition. If anything about your body concerns you, see a qualified clinician.
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