Do you want good posture?

Categories: Uncategorized Aug 21, 2013

When I was in middle school, my mom would always tell me to quit slouching. Apparently I slouched a great deal. I blame my Atari 2600. Anyway, I remember how I would try to raise and shrug my shoulders in order to try to stand "tall". I had no idea what good posture was, but I thought I could get it by adjusting my shoulders and sucking in my belly.

When I was in high school. I had a big butt. Or at least it seemed like I did. I could have had an excessive lumbar

curve that made my butt look big. I blame the countless unsupervised hours in the weight room doing squats and bench press. Okay, I actually did a lot more bench press than I did squats.  Anyway, I don't know that my weight training was helping my posture all that much.

When I graduated from college I ended up in a Physical Therapist's office due to some weight training issue I had created. She did not like my posture so she had me practice "standing tall" with my shoulders held back. I actually gave this a good effort. I think I walked around for a week looking like some frankenstein hybrid as I was trying to point my head somewhere up in the sky and keep my shoulders held back. Have you ever tried this?   It is awkward and not natural.


Have you ever tried to train your way to perfect posture?

Have you tried standing with your back against a wall - trying to feel your tale bone, shoulder blades and back of your head against a wall? If you have done this, were you able to hold that position for very long after you walked away from the wall?  Have you tried pointing your head towards the ceiling or imagining that there was a string pulling you up to the sky from your head?

There are all kinds of exercises and tricks to develop good posture. But often times, all the times in my case, they don't work. Why? Because posture is a reflexive position, not a trained position. Yes, I said, and believe, that posture is a reflex. All the hours of standing with your back against a wall will never give you good posture if you don't have the reflexive strength to have good posture.  I spent the first 30 years of my life, trying to hold and feel my way into good posture.

Now, in my upper 30s, I have perfect posture. Do you want to know how I got it? I can tell you this: I did not practice it, or try to force it. It just "happened." I blame rocking and crawling. Yes, in my upper 30s, after I started rocking and crawling like babies do, I find myself with great posture. How do I know? Cause everyone tells me, "wow, you've got really good posture." That is not something I ever heard much in my past.

It makes sense if you think about it. Rocking and crawling are what develops our posture. That is where we develop the curves of our spine and that is where we build the reflexive strength to hold those curves in proper alignment when we are on two feet.

Do you want good posture? Just do what you did when you were a child. Get down on the floor and develop it, or relearn it, again. Posture is a natural reflex. You should just have it. It is not something that working out in a health club or sitting on a swiss ball will develop. Good posture belongs to us. We just have remember how we got it. When we do the things are bodies were meant to do, our reflexive strength is returned to us and things like good posture return with it. When we rock and crawl - when we walk (given that we have good reflexive strength) we develop, support, encourage and keep good posture.

Posture - it's all in the reflexes.

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