Improving posture is about viewing the body as a single integrated whole, and to aim to keep a neutral spine at all times. A neutral spine means that there is not excessive flexion or extension in any section of the spine, which includes the lumbar (lower), thoracic (middle), and cervical (upper neck) regions of the spine.Posture is about integrating functional movement throughout our workouts and our daily routines. If the movements of our training routines are faulty and facilitate poor posture, than it could undo good posture that we maintain throughout the day, and vice versa.

So imagine that I sit up straight all day and always walk with my shoulders down and my chest tall, but then I go to the gym and weight TRAIN my body with bicep curls for example, but I am training the movement with hunched over shoulders and a collapsed chest, this could completely undo all of the good postural work I just had done over time by creating faulty length and tension relationships. Just like if I go to the gym and train with perfect form to the best of my ability, but then go and sit at a desk all day slouching, no amount of training in the world can fix my posture if I do not maintain it regularly.

Posture is about connecting to your body at ALL times and working to keep your spine in the most stable and optimal position for that movement and time, which is nearly always neutral.   Being someone who is 6’ 4” I know firsthand what it is like to have posture directly affect my performance on all levels.  A strong, flexible, and upright spine is a beacon of good health across the board, physically and cognitively.  Do you notice how naturally well-grounded people with very straight spines and good tall posture come across?

This is done through a combination of:

• Core stability
• Strengthening weak muscles
• Stretching tight muscles
• Mindfully concentrating on your posture throughout the day and life at first until the pattern becomes ingrained naturally
• Doing tissue work and trigger point release therapy

First we must consider core stability, the core includes everything from the head down to the pelvic floor.  Core stability can be affected from everything, ranging from emotional to dietary stressors.  It is important that we focus on all of these different layers, and recognize the importance of eating well and getting rid of stress.

With that said, here are some tips to get your core to activate when facilitating better posture or getting rid of tension.

Stand up really straight and think of lifting up your pelvic floor (bottom of the belly where sex glands are). The best way to do this is lift your butt up and pull the bottom of your stomach up towards your chest.  This may be difficult at first but the best way to reach the deepest parts of your core is to BREATHE DEEPLY.

By breathing deeply, with every breath, you can work to rid tension and begin to develop core stability, you will strengthen the low back by learning to breathe down to the belly, the thoracic spine by expanding the diaphragm and breathing stabilizers, and the cervical spine by giving it a strong breathing-supported base.

Strengthening your posture means identifying faulty recruitment patterns.

When you work to improve your posture it is important to figure out what positions your body is spending most of its time in. Are you a construction worker who is chronically bending down all day long to pick up lumber, or do you work slouched over at a desk all day?

Once we identify where we spend most of our time physically, we can begin to correct it by consciously changing our movement patterns.

The person working at a desk slouching all day can aim to really sit up much straighter and keep their chin tucked straight back, then they could incorporate getting up every 10 minutes and doing a few squats or stretches to help change the position. They could adjust their seat every few minutes to ensure that an over-recruitment pattern does not develop.

Every position we spend time in is training our body to adapt to maximize our efficiency for that position. If you spend your time hunching over all day long your body will begin to make the adjustments for that position even if it is not functional.

One way to put it is that you are training yourself for dysfunction and injury down the road. If we know that the spine must be able to stay neutral with a healthy allowance for flexion and overextension AT TIMES, than why would we train ourselves to be excessively flexed (hunched over), or extended (protruding forward), and develop weak muscles.

If we KNOW that the body is supposed to be a certain way anatomically, how can someone complain after sitting or walking wrong for 25 years when their knees are shot?

Prevention and rehabilitation are the most powerful tools we have when it comes to postural misalignment and defects. I believe that especially when we also incorporate tissue therapy techniques during training and treatment, it is never too late to start improving posture.

Strengthening weak muscles.

When we develop an over-use pattern, such as letting our head hang forward and slouching when sitting, certain muscles that are not really supposed to be getting fired as much will become chronically tense over time, and other muscles that are supposed to be working to facilitate GOOD POSTURE and a neutral spine are not working properly, and they become weak.

When one muscle becomes tight, there is always an opposing muscle or subset of muscles that becomes lengthened and very weak. To be honest, both the tight muscles AND the lengthened muscles could both be considered dysfunctional and weak.  Because one muscle will become too long and not have ENOUGH tension, while the opposing muscle will become shortened and TIGHT, so while the tight muscle is capable of producing a lot of force, it cannot lengthen completely so it will limit your Range of Motion and effectively weaken you in a full-range of motion movement.

So for better performance and quality of life overall, it is imperative that we strengthen certain muscles.

The tight muscles are always very tight HIPS and QUADS, the hip flexors and quads get extremely tight from activities such as sitting and driving where the hips are flexed, many people who do not lunge or properly extend the hips after sitting will develop these over-active hips and quad complex, this also shortens muscles that integrate with the abdominals, back, and glutes, such as the Ilio Psoas. Once all of the hip flexor complex becomes extremely tight it will cause the synergist and opposing muscle groups to become chronically weak and lengthened.

I see many people whose hamstrings are too long, their glutes almost never fire and are stretched out, and their lower back is being pulling into hyperextension. The proper routine to correct this would be to: stretch and lengthen the hip flexors through exercises such as lunges and stretches like a prayer squat.  Than we would begin to strengthen the glutes and hamstrings by doing exercises like hamstring curls and plié squats with an emphasis on the glute complex.

This can be figured out and understood by almost anyone, some common problems and syndromes include: Upper cross syndrome, lower cross, etc. etc.

Once we identify what the muscles are doing, and then figuring out what they are SUPPOSED to be doing, we can start stretching and applying exercises as needed.

It is pretty simple actually, if you stand on a wall you should be able to draw a straight line down through the top of your head, shoulders, hips, knees, and ankles, wherever you are off the line, or tilted one way or another, will give you a good idea of what your body is doing. Performing exercises such as squats and deadlifts and filming yourself doing them can be another great way to see what is going on with your body.

Be mindful of your posture at all times throughout the day until it becomes something that is natural.

When trying to correct postural imbalances it is going to be important that there is a conscious effort made to fix the problems throughout the day. For example, if your head tends to protrude forward, you are going to want to focus on keeping your chin tucked straight back while still keeping the head level, and keeping the shoulders down and back.

If you sit for long periods of time you may want to make sure that your glutes and pelvic floor are being engaged and the belly button is kept tight. This is going to take a few weeks or months to train your body to hold these more optimal positions naturally, but it is well worth it.

Here are some tips for good posture to focus on throughout the day:

When walking make sure that your feet are pointed straightforward.  If your feet tend to fall flat from a collapsed arch, or they point far out to the side, this will affect the function of your hips and the rest of your body.  Focus on correcting how you walk first and foremost, if you can begin to walk on the balls of your feet and the outer edge of your foot, while also standing taller and engaging the core and glutes, you will be well on your way to better posture.  Walking is something that we perform hundreds and possibly thousands of repetitions of daily, this is a MAJOR movement pattern that must be done correctly for optimal health and alignment. This is one of the reasons why walking is one of the best forms of exercise, if even just slight attention to form is kept.

Always focus on thoracic extension, especially when breathing and bending over. This means focusing on the mid spine and also incorporates the head and neck, so therefore the main factors in proper thoracic extension are the shoulders.  The shoulders are not meant to rise up near the face, they are also not meant to round over forward.  The shoulders should always be kept tucked down and slightly back.  You can practice this by lifting your chest tall, squeezing your shoulders back a bit, and engaging your lats by squeezing underneath your arms.  Once the shoulders are set, you can then get much more stability and strength throughout the abdominals and legs.

Bend patterns such as the deadlift are patterns where we often see people begin to round over in their thoracic spine, which is detrimental to good posture and the strength of the back. A proper deadlift or bend aims to maintain a back that is neutral, which means there is a good natural arch in the lumbar spine and that the thoracic spine is effectively extended (chest is held tall) throughout a bend pattern.  A good example of keeping proper extension in the thoracic spine would be bending over with a flat back and hinging from the hips and knees while maintaining upper back stability.  This is how we can lift heavy objects without compromising our postural balance.

Keep your chin tucked straight back at all times. Keeping the chin tucked does not mean tucking your chin down into the chest (which is applicable during certain flexion movements such as when doing a sit-up).  Tucking your chin means pulling the chin straight back so that the head stays level and that you are looking straight ahead at eye height at all times, when you go to bend over the chin shoulder remain back this will help the shoulders and upper back to stay stable.  This is a key component of a strong cervical spine.  If you feel some pressure on the front of your neck on the muscles that cover your throat and your thyroid than you are doing it right.

Keep the butt and hips tucked underneath your spine and the belly tight. If your hips have a tendency to tilt forward or back than you need to strive to keep the pelvis underneath you and the glutes tight.  You can do this by squeezing your butt a bit at all times and think of sucking the bottom of your belly up while also pulling the belly button in tightly.  Doing this while keeping the shoulders engaged in a down and back position as described above is extremely effective at building postural strength.  When the butt is squeezed along with the abdominals and the feet are pointing forward, we have what I would consider to be an effective BRACE pattern and this will ensure that the spine is stable and prevent the low-back from becoming mechanically disadvantaged and potentially injured.

Do yoga and pilates. Yoga and Pilates taught by an experienced instructor are extremely effective at building postural strength by both stretching muscles and strengthening them.  Both of these exercise modalities are extremely effective at building deep stabilizer muscles AND developing proper breathing techniques, which is always the basis of good posture.  No matter what level an athlete or someone I train is at, I often use yoga and pilates to target weak muscles or problem areas for them.  Both modalities teach you how to coordinate your muscles with your breathing and stability, which is very applicable to daily life.

A good time to watch your posture is when you are:

• Sitting
• Walking
• Driving
• Running
• Weight Training
• Typing
• Riding your bike
• Hiking
• Relaxing
• Sleeping

Basically anytime you are going to be doing a movement repetitively, you should ALWAYS make sure that you are striving to do proper form and maintain good posture to the best of your ability. A repetitive movement performed incorrectly simply trains the body to keep doing that movement incorrectly and facilitate bad posture and can eventually lead to injury.  Not everyone’s body is built the same and some of us will naturally be different structurally, but the same principals of good posture and mechanics apply to us all, even though our own unique challenges will be different.

For example, myself being over 6 feet tall, I will have a much different body and tight spots than someone who is 5’ 5”. But we all have to work to maintain good posture and work on managing our tension.

Summary:

Good posture is about striving to keep the spine in a neutral position and make sure that the body is always strongest with a neutral spine. We cannot let bad movement patterns develop over time and cause chronic tension and weakness to develop when our muscles go to work together.  This chronic tension and weakness over time leads to injuries that are completely preventable.  We must pay attention to our posture during repetitive exercises such as when we sit, walk, or weight train.

We must always remember the basics: chin tucked, shoulders down and back, butt and abdominals braced, and feet forward with good walking mechanics. Striving for these muscles bracing and standing up as straight as we can will eventually lead to good posture becoming natural to us.

Work on correcting bad posture by doing yoga and pilates, as these exercise disciplines are extremely effective at teaching us the basics of breathing, stretching, and core stabilization.

Manage tension and knots caused from months or years or misaligned posture by foam rolling, using a lacross ball, and going to an experienced Orthopedic Massage Therapist.

Standing up straight and sitting up straight really can help us to avoid injuries and manage tension, ALWAYS strive for the best posture possible. If we maintain good posture throughout the day and throughout life, we will maintain stability and strength in our character as well, we will become less susceptible to injury and stronger by virtue.  Good posture is the basis of functional movement and good health.