It was around 1998 that I started to hone in not only on the way a person moved as they exercised, but also the posture they maintained while doing it. It could be something as subtle as the turn out of their feet when they executed a lunge, or the position of their traps when they pressed a weight overhead. I was using the principle that your body will get stronger in the posture and alignment you maintain while exercising. Ten years later, I would listen to an educator at one of my conferences question and then challenge this approach. Brett Jones, a well respected and internationally recognized kettlebell instructor, stated, “We don’t all have the same bone structure.” It was his opinion that those skeletal and muscular anatomy pictures we all studied were misleading. The size of our trochanter, shape of the acetabulum, and femoral head all vary from person to person. This will affect how much you externally turn out your feet when you stand. It was his belief, that many trainers, did more harm than good forcing everyone to position their feet straight ahead when performing squats. “Our bodies are made up of bones which act as levers”, stated Jones. If we all have different alignments based upon our bone structure, can we define what neutral posture is?
I believe we can. Let’s start from our feet and work our way up. When standing in neutral we want to establish four points of contact with our feet. This is regardless of if you are flat footed or have high arches. You want two points in the heel and two in the padded area just below the big toe and pinky toe.
Next up the chain, you should be able to stand with full knee extension (example A below). This should give the appearance of your femur (upper thigh bone) is stacked above the bones of your lower leg. Everything from knee trauma to pelvis position to hamstring tightness can provide difficulty for someone trying to achieve full knee extension. You can also put the people who have joint laxity in this group. These are people who look as if they are double-jointed due to how they can push their joints beyond neutral.
Following our chain up, we come to the pelvis. Anterior pelvic tilt, posterior pelvic tilt, and a rotated pelvis are a few of the common terms describing pelvic alignment which I observe at the studio. This is when I like to keep things simple. Consider your pelvis as a bowl filled halfway with water. Regardless of your size, you want the bowl level, so you don’t spill water. If you maintain an anterior pelvic position, you will spill water from the front. A posterior pelvic tilt will lead to spilled water to the rear. Excessive sitting (something we all do too much of), tight hip flexors (by-product of excessive sitting), and a weak core are a few of the common reasons for this. The ability to achieve proper pelvic positioning is critical for spine health, as it is the base of support for your vertebrae.
Trying not to overcomplicate things, I’m going to group the final two areas together. Shoulder and head alignment. We can blame technology, such as our cell phones and desktop computers, for this troubling issue. Both put us in rounded shoulder positioning with our traps elevated up into our ears. The phones put our heads in a downward position. Look around at everyone next time you’re at the airport. The cues I like to use at the studio is to put your shoulder blades in your back pocket for proper shoulder alignment and make a “double chin” for good head positioning. I try to stay clear of telling people to pull their shoulders back because this sometimes leads them to elevate as they retract.
What you need to do is imagine your body as a game of Jenga. You want to stack your body. Here’s my attempt to achieve a neutral posture. Hopefully a block doesn’t fall.
My motivation for this post came from a question I get asked frequently. “What can I do at home?” Spending 10- 15 minutes a day, standing in front of a mirror fixing and re-aligning your posture is a productive way to improve your overall health. It doesn’t require any equipment. It may eliminate a couple aches and pains along the way and can help you avoid future injuries due to poor posture. I understand toned arms and a smaller waist may be your primary goals, but don’t forget about this practice.
I’ll see you at the studio.