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Firstly, I thoroughly recommend buying a copy of my book ‘Posture Power’ and also ‘Pain Free’ by Pete Egoscue. Both of these will help you immensely in getting started with posture.
But, for now, and as discussed in the video above (and in greater detail in this episode of my podcast), my definition of posture tends to be the opposite of what most people think it is.
Your posture is not about sitting up straight, standing tall, yanking your shoulders backwards or holding yourself rigidly in anyway. This only creates tension, and tension only makes your posture worse.
Your posture is actually about restoring proper function back to all of the muscles in your body. Think of your posture as simply your whole-body movement patterns. Whole-body movement patterns involve the function of the less obvious areas of our body: like our eyes, our toes and our diaphragm, along with the function of the obvious areas like our glutes, our biceps and our abdominals.
It’s about being able to experience fluidity, safety, strength and ease through each and every movement you take your body to, without ever consciously thinking about your posture at all.
The more stiff and weak your body is, the worse your natural posture will be.
The more mobile and strong your body is, the better natural posture will be.
Luckily, whatever your age and whatever your starting point, because your body is amazingly adaptable, your posture can dramatically change by establishing a posture practice into your lifestyle.
To be honest, we shouldn’t have to think about our posture (our movement patterns) at all. If we lived the hunter-gatherer lifestyles our bodies have evolved for, our muscles would be kept strong and our joints would be kept supple. However we sit in chair from babyhood, which weakens and stiffens our muscles, which then pull our joints out of alignment. This misalignment eventually causes physical pain, whole system disruption and mental anguish.
Because of our sedentary and stressful lifestyles, we do need to think about our posture and we do have to actively (and consistently) work on it … at least, if we don’t want to suffer the (otherwise inevitable) downwards spiral of immobility, anxiety, pain and, eventually, a lack of independence.
This is where my work as a posture therapist comes in. I will teach you how to move properly and you’ll reconnect back to your body again. You’ll learn to speak its language, restoring your communication skills and you’ll acquire a new found respect and confidence in yourself. By learning to move properly again and restoring function and balance to your muscles and bones, you’ll transform your entire life.
As per the video above (and this podcast episode here), posture therapy is about improving the quality of your movement patterns, before you increase the quantity of your movement patterns. Think of posture therapy as ‘Level 1’ movement, walking, yoga and pilates as ‘Level 2’ movement and the gym, running and sports as ‘Level 3’ movement.
Too many people jump straight into ‘Level 2’ or ‘Level 3’ movement, without first investing their attention on how efficiently their movement machine can actually move. This is why so many people struggle with pain and movement: they aren’t broken and or old, they just do not understand their body well enough and expect too much of it, too soon.
The premise of posture therapy is about slowing down, stripping our movement back to basics, reducing gravitational load whilst we do our corrective posture exercises and gently restoring function back to weak muscles.
Many people find me or posture therapy because they want to reduce their pain. But often, there is scepticism as to how and why posture would work, if so many other things they’ve tried before haven’t.
You might have read some of my Testimonials, or listened to this episode of my podcast, but posture therapy works because it uses logical wisdom to view the whole body as a connected movement machine and does not divide the body into unrelated, separate parts that have no bearing on each other.
Just because a part of you hurts, it doesn’t mean that painful part of you is the problem. As posture therapists, we work off the basis that the painful bits are normally a victim of overload and overwork and need to be left well alone to recover. Posture therapy leaves symptoms alone and digs out the actual root cause of the movement problem. For example, if your lower back hurts, I would not be advising you to ‘stretch’ or ‘strengthen’ your lower back, as this will likely overwork it further and make it hurt more. I can show you how to find out why the lower back is overworking and what it is compensating on behalf of. This paradigm shift is the fundamental difference between posture and most other modalities and is why it is so effective.
Once you’ve fallen into the posture rabbit hole, you soon realise that knee pain (or any pain) might be caused by foot dysfunction, hip dysfunction, shoulder dysfunction or even a breathing dysfunction. Dysfunctions (stiffness and weakness) cause breakdowns in the efficiency of the human movement machine.
By changing and improving your movement dysfunctions through targeted, corrective posture exercises, you will quickly ease your joint discomfort, muscular tension, and all sorts of scary-sounding medical diagnosis’ and conditions.
You’ll soon realise that you were never broken and it wasn’t because you were ‘getting old’, it’s just that you just weren’t moving very efficiently and the people whose advice you sought previously were barking up the wrong tree. That’s why it didn’t work before.
Through my years of doing this, I’ve realised that the people who really benefit from posture generally tend to have a number of traits in common.
– they are curious, action-orientated people who like things to be said and explained to them in simple, easy to understand terms.
– they are problem solvers who like figuring out puzzles for themselves, but who can ask for help when needed. A healthy blend of being an independent learner and thinker, but who will ask for assistance, rather than give up.
– they are people who gain a sense of personal pride by taking control and accountability for themselves and their health.
– they are people who avoid medical intervention and don’t like taking pills etc. Rather than rush to a doctor at every sign of a cold, they tend to trust in the ability of the body to heal itself naturally, if you get to the root cause of the problem.
– they are already people who enjoy movement. Some might run marathons and others might go for a daily walk, but exercise is something they already enjoy. They don’t need persuading to make time for movement in their life.
– they are people who appreciate the small details of movement (understanding what they should be feeling wake up/what shouldn’t be happening) and like taking things slowly (or at least appreciate they will need to if they want to get rid of pain).
– they are people who find joy in the process of learning and are not rushing to an end destination.
If you see yourself in these traits, I’m willing to bet this is a great path for you.
Check out the ‘Posture Squad’ walkthrough video below to see what membership is all about and I hope to see you soon.
