Understanding Posture No Bullsh*t Guide Part 1: Beginners Guide
What is Posture?
Yeah, I know. You already know what posture is, but do you really? Posture is the position and use of your body’s biomechanics. Your position or stance. The way you carry yourself. The relationship between your body parts. When this relationship is free good posture happens naturally. Perfect upright posture should be completely relaxed and free-flowing. But how do we actually develop this? None of the exercises I’ve tried have worked… Just take a deep breath, you’re in the right place, trust me. There are just a couple of concepts we have to go over before I start connecting the dots for you. Before we start, how is your posture right now? Fix it. Let’s get going!
The Mind and the Body are One
Your mind and your body are the same. The primary function of the brain is to control and monitor your daily movements. In this guide, I’ll be exposing all the lies you’ve heard up until about posture. Spoiler: There are a lot. The first concept is the reason why posture is so important and to describe this point I always say “The mind and the body are one”. This means that your posture directly affects your inner ecosystem. Bad Posture reflects a negative inner state and vice versa. Let me explain what I mean.
How Posture Reflects Your Inner State
Your inner ecosystem of thoughts and emotions is expressed outwardly through the body. You could say that your movement (thus posture) is controlled by your thoughts. Posture symbolizes your mental and emotional state. We hold tension in the muscles of repressed emotions that literally weigh us down. So a feeling of lack of confidence translates into body language as slumped back, rounded shoulders, and forward head. Symbolizing a defensive, submissive, and less powerful presence. The quality of your thoughts = The quality of your posture. Powerful and positive thoughts translate into a powerful and positive posture. So it would be fair to say that bad posture will automatically translate into more negative thoughts while good posture will naturally exude more positive ones.
The Posture Shield
This is a concept I call The Posture Shield. Basically, by assuming a correct posture we instantly shield ourselves against our shelves. So what exactly do I mean by this? Try this experiment with me. Sitting down (or standing) roll your shoulder forward, slump your back, and put your head forward. Tell yourself some bad stuff, go hard on yourself, maybe you spilled your coffee this morning, just let it out. Feels pretty bad, and it’s very easy to think negatively like this. Now roll your shoulders up and back, keep your spine braced and straight, and make sure your head is perfectly balanced. If you did this correctly, not only has your presence shot through the roof but if you tell yourself those same negative thoughts, it almost seems laughable that you would feed yourself something so unfulfilling. Hence, a natural energy shield. Ps, this works with all negative energy, even external energy that others are trying to dump on you.
How Bad Posture Is Developed
Rome was built one stone at a time. Posture is a habit. It took you years to develop your unique posture and chances are it’s not serving you. How do you sit? What’s your posture like when waiting in line? When you bend over to pick something up, do you bend at the hips or lower back? These are you questions you must start asking yourself if you desire permanent change. Understanding how to correctly move, what muscles to engage, and what muscles to relax is essential to move in flow. The war on posture is complicated… because everyone makes it complicated. So I’ll make it easy for you. I’ve identified the main areas of focus if you are serious about making a change. Bad posture is created by 3 different factors.
- Lack of Presence: Future Tense
- Lack of Understanding of Fundamental Biomechanics
- Improperly Trained Muscles
Lack of Presence: Future Tense
Ahhh yes, the problem of the century. A lack of conscious awareness. True earth rooting presence, is a scarce quality in our TikTok generation and it’s causing your postural problems. Future Tense refers to the thoughts of the future that create tension, ie, being late for work, being nervous about a meeting, or just a general feeling of uncertainty. This takes us back to the posture shield I mentioned. It’s easier to control your posture than it is to control your mind. And here’s another bombshell, you become more present when your posture is corrected. Much like breathing, correcting your posture is an instant portal to the present moment. Because you have to be conscious to correct this posture in the first place (more on this below). Learning to be more present, becoming aware of your posture, and then correcting it in real-time. That is the recipe for superhero posture.
I wanted to touch on another subject I found extremely interesting and I think you will too. I read this somewhere and it stuck with me because I think so many people suffer from this dis-ease: Constantly Rushing. Life is so fast these days, there’s so much information, so much to do, so much to be jealous of, so much to appreciate, so much to protect, etc. It just feels like it’s hard to get an honest break, and I feel like the majority of the population feels like this. So I’ll just explain it since I can’t give you a solution to this in under 1000 words, you’ll have to sit on it for a while (with good posture of course).
The Dis-ease of the Constant Rush: The stress comes from constantly rushing. From one thing to the next, trying to get things as fast as possible, trying to beat Father Time. This is more of a mindset than a disease but those who have it do suffer like it. This leads to stress, and what does stress do? Creates tension in the body. Picture this: You are late for work again, well you’ll just skip the coffee and shower. So you speed to work and you are wondering if your boss is going to be there, or if your peers are going to judge you. Do you even look presentable? These thoughts translate into stress, which translates into a defensive posture. Your trapezius muscles tense, rounding your shoulders, pushing your head forward, destroying the natural curve of your spine, this compresses the diaphragm, making your breathing shallow. Your shallow breathing results in a lack of oxygen, which further increases the stress, this further tenses your muscles, and your negative thoughts become worse. You can see how this would create a perpetual cycle that’s hard to break, so what do you do? Well, you consciously exert your control over YOUR body and fix your posture, you then take a couple of deep breaths, and it’s going to be ok.
Relax through your day, you don’t have to be anywhere. Nothing has to be done immediately. Relax. Breathe. Exert your control and your body will thank you.
Lack of Understanding of Movement
We’ve all formed habits around how we move and most of the time these are just inefficient and are robbing you of your precious energy. It’s important to learn how to properly move, even if you think you already know how to, I can promise, you don’t. This can be explained by a concept called Faulty Sensory Appreciation. Essentially, once we’ve performed a certain movement enough it becomes a habit, now, once it’s a habit, our body will fail to pick up on the fact that it’s incorrect. Why? Because it’s been so reinforced through repetition that it becomes the new normal. It’s going to require *conscious* effort to undo these habits, but even then how are you supposed to move when you’ve never been taught? Luckily, I have articles explaining all fundamental biomechanical movements. Learn them, exert these movements constantly (until effortless), and watch your life change.
Improperly Trained Muscles
Postural exercises, helpful or not? Answer: Extremely Helpful. However, unreliable. Your body craves balance. Muscular imbalances wreak havoc on your body. What I mean by this is weak muscles cause other muscles to compensate by becoming over-tense. Overly tense muscles cause other muscles to become weaker. Becoming a destructive cycle. For example, overly tight chest muscles pull the shoulders forward. When the shoulders are pulled forward the back extends. When the back extends, the head and neck are pushed forward, etc. Everything in your body is balanced, an imbalance anywhere causes a huge kink in the hose. So it’s important to make sure our muscles are properly trained and stretched so we can exert good posture in the first place.
The Reason Your Posture Exercises Aren’t Working
I’m sure by now you’ve heard of corrective exercises or posture exercises. And I think that most of these exercises are great, and should even be performed regularly. But what postural experts won’t tell you is that these exercises they sell you aren’t long-term solutions. While they help temporarily relieve tension and improve posture, this effort is short-lived. The second you sit down at the office to do work or relax on the couch to watch some TV, you sink back into these power-draining postures. Even after performing your elaborate posture routine. So what gives? You’ve done the exercises but it still feels like a struggle to keep yourself balanced, why is that?
Well, posture is not as simple as performing exercises. How you do one thing is how you do everything. So you can do all the exercises on YouTube, with little to show if you don’t understand this one concept. Posture is constant. It isn’t something we can do for 3×15 and expect a godly presence. It is something you have to constantly exert. Your posture while sitting, standing, bending, twisting, lifting, and squatting will determine whether or not you maintain good posture in the long run. And this is why doing yoga for 20 minutes won’t solve your postural issues. Because the second you sit back down in your chair, you slump forward. It is a matter of habit. To solve the posture problem you must eliminate the everyday habits you’ve developed over the years that have wreaked havoc on your alignment. And I’m going to show you exactly how to do this in Part 2.