How can we correct our posture??

R

realworksuks

2
I watched this video on youtube and realized I was exactly who he was describing.

Also TonyMcellan noticed my hips stick way out from the pictures that I posted... it got me thinking.

Here is the video:



I need to correct my posture... where do I start?
 
it's caused mainly by tight hip flexors and weak glutes. Work your glutes, work on getting them to fire. All single leg work (make sure your knee doesn't cave in! Push it out, this will help activate the glutes)
Do some glute bridges, etc.
The weak glutes and tight hip flexors usually cause weak abs and a tight lower back, which causes lower back pain.
 
I have the exact same problem and it is called anterior pelvic tilt. I am using this article by Mike Robertson at T-Nation as a guide to help me with it. Not just the glutes needed more strength and the hip flexors need to be loosen, the hamstrings have something to do with it too. Too much Quad Dominant work and lack of hip dominant work causes the anterior pelvic tilt. Also sitting too much causes the hip flexors to shorten, so its good to stretch them throughout the day if you sit a lot throughout the day to keep them from shortening.

http://www.t-nation.com/readArticle.do?id=1508256 Here is the article on Anterior Pelvic Tilt as well as Posterior Pelvic Tilt.

According to Robertson...
the Muscles you need to strengthen - rectus abdominus, external obliques, gluteals, hamstrings
Muscies you need to stretch - psoas+, Iliacus, rectus femoris, TFL, Spinal Erectors


At the end of the article, there is a sample program for anterior pelvic tilt if you want to take a look at that. The dynamic exercises that are listed in there though are the ones I will be doing as my warm up for weightroom as long with hip flexor and pirformis stretching and glute activation work. It does not include sets or reps anywhere, so we get to pick whatever we want to use for sets and reps. Myself, I need to not do any quad dominant work (single leg squats without weight is fine because my goal is to be able to do a Pistil someday) until my anterior pelvic tilt is gone.
 
all of that is not always the case. It's usually the case. My hams were too tight, and I still have an anterior pelvic tilt. Also, most of the other problems (stiff low back, etc) are not what's causing the ATP, but rather the consequence of the ATP. Since when your pelvic tilts, your abs will be in a stretched position and your lower back will be in a shortened position, but it's usually the glutes and hip flexors that initiate the problem, thus, correcting these muscles should be the priority. There is also often a heap of other problems that comes with the anterior pelvic tilt, for example upper back and shoulder posture problems, but you can't really do much about them until you have fixed the underlying cause, which often is at the hips.
Now I must also say, that the problems at the hips are often caused by problems at the foot and ankle. The message is, imbalances are often created in the lower part of the body, then travel up.

Unfortunately, I don't know much about foot and ankle problems, there just isn't a lot of information out there, everything is focused on the hip and shoulders :(

Also, search on t-nation for "neanderthal no more" it's a series of articles focusing on posture and it includes a way to figure out all your posture problems.
 
I don't think we "have to" leave the rest of the muscles alone because if we do, we will lose strength in that area. What we want to do is maintain the strength we have in the strong muscles and build the strength in the weak if thats the right way to put it. We just have to have more of a focus on the muscles we need to stretch and strengthen. We could do less sets or weights or more reps or whatever on the quad dominant and then do the opposite on hip dominant to strengthen that area.
 
nope, just prioritize the muscles that are weak. It really depends how bad it is.
Some people probably recommend not doing a lot of lower back stuff, doing sumo deads instead of regular deads, etc, etc. I never did any of that, I just focused on doing a lot of exercises for my glutes and it slowly got better. But again, it depends how bad it is and how fast you need it fixed.

the most important thing though, is just eliminating the posture flaws while your walking, standing, sitting, etc, in your every day life.
 
image024.jpg
 
I really enjoy Mike Robertson's writing style. It's so fluid and expressive. It's hard not to understand him on the first read. This is not always the case for some of the others.

I was wondering about posture, myself, so thought I'd write to say thanks for this.

Don't really have much to add to the discussion, other than to say I believe Mike knows what he's talking about, and best wishes. :)
 
Karky said:
nope, just prioritize the muscles that are weak. It really depends how bad it is.
Some people probably recommend not doing a lot of lower back stuff, doing sumo deads instead of regular deads, etc, etc. I never did any of that, I just focused on doing a lot of exercises for my glutes and it slowly got better. But again, it depends how bad it is and how fast you need it fixed.

the most important thing though, is just eliminating the posture flaws while your walking, standing, sitting, etc, in your every day life.
Click to expand...

For myself as far as quad dominant goes, it will most likely be one legged squats. I think my left quad is weaker than my right quad according to my one legged squat, so I need to strengthen that; however, my right leg gets out of balance easier than my left, so I need to work on more balance for my right leg. One legged squat is a good exercise to determine which leg is weaker and which isn't. I do these better on a certain size bench and then as I get stronger, I single leg squat on a lower one.

Do you know what way people sit in which causes anterior pelvic tilt? I know automatically when we sit, our backs round. I am thinking its maybe the kind of chair we have or something?

Hopefully at least every 30 minutes or so if I can actually remember that I am at the computer or sitting down watching tv to stretch my hip flexors at least 20 seconds each side. I hear that too much hip flexor stretching (too much hip flexor flexiblity) can get you into posterior tilt, but what I want is to get my pelvis neutral. Stretching the erector spinae is a good idea too.

For strengthening of the external obliques and upper RA, I cannot do a crunch correctly. :(
 
nomatter how we sit our hipflexors will tighten. You know where the hip flexors are? when we sit the hip flexors are in a short state, because our legs are up and resting on the floor. get it?

and I wouldn't worry about getting a posterior tilt if you've got an anterior tilt. Just remember to stop stretching excessively when you reach a natural pelvic.
 
yeah

by the way, sometimes I have my legs on my chair crossed indian style. Are the hip flexors still shortened? The only way their not shortened is if I am kneeling or standing right?
 
I've made reference to bad posture in a number of my previous posts and way to correct it but havn't got a whole lot of recognition or thanks for it. Maybe now some people will take me seriously when i point it out to you. But probably not though.
 
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you're not the only one here who cares about posture streamline. Thing is, a lot of people don't even know what bad posture is. We need a sticky about this, with some pictures and basic information about posture. Nothing fancy going into detail, just explaining the basics posture flaws.
 
Karky said:
you're not the only one here who cares about posture streamline. Thing is, a lot of people don't even know what bad posture is. We need a sticky about this, with some pictures and basic information about posture. Nothing fancy going into detail, just explaining the basics posture flaws.
Click to expand...

I remember bipennate giving out posture advice but that's it...Maybe i should spend more time in the weight lifting section of the forum. I can see some use in a sticky on posture, yes.
 
first you need to learn the correct posture... can you do it when lifting nothing but body weight? If you can then you need to practice that posture. Use very low weight and practice your exercises with right on posture. If you practice enough, you will soon have it ingrained and you will probably start lifting more!

Posture is like riding a bike... if you learn it correctly from the start and master it, you will keep that internally whenever you need it.
 
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