Finding Gym Excellence While Living with Poor Posture

Zoom out for a second. Most of the shapes and postures we’re making in our regular lives are generally folded forward at a desk, driving, texting, watching TV, etc. In the movement world, we call this flexion.

Much of the movements in the gym (and sport), however, are generally open, tall, and extended. Think of jumping, sprinting, pressing, and lifting! In the movement world, we call this extension.

Common postures outside the gym are destroying gym performance. 

The trouble with this is simple. If your life has you living in flexion and your performance requires you to express extension, there may be a gap in your readiness to express your abilities. Chronically living in flexion generally is manifested in a few common ways:

• Shoulders rolled forward (kyphosis)
• Forward head posture
• Locked mid-back (immobile thoracic spine)
• Tight hip flexors (short psoas)

When bridging the gap between the modern poor postures to the best version of you in the gym, let’s reverse engineer some solutions. If we look at the list above, the best places to start might look like:

• Increased awareness and strength of the upper back to bring the shoulders back and down. Also, loosening the pec muscles will help. 
•  Increased awareness of head posture by “packing the chin” back, putting screens at eye level, etc. 
• Thoracic spine mobilizations (to extension and rotation). 
• Psoas openers like the infamous “couch stretch.” 

Remember, just because you live a normal modern life and don’t stretch everyday doesn’t mean you’re broken or ineligible for the gym. Enrolling in these strategies, however, may set you free to new performance and capacity than you otherwise would. 

Keep going.