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The strangest thing about this is that children know this without any input, and then go bad. I've watched my older son (now 5) go from having a perfect squat

The strangest thing about this is that children know this without any input, and then go bad. I've watched my older son (now 5) go from having a perfect squat and hip hinge to starting to bend over "like an adult" with the arched back. There must be some reason that everyone, to some good approximation -- I'm in the US and this is what I see, does this the wrong way. Even people who know better seem to require conscious effort to do the motion correctly, myself included. Maybe it's because squatting and hip hinging are thing that require that you work into the position, rather than "falling" into it. It is strange that it follows cultural lines; possibly it's just imitating what people around you are doing, so fixing this would require some pretty large-scale brainwashing.

Floegipoky 9y ago
Watch for your son to start heel-striking too, if he isn't already. I think you're right about the large-scale brainwashing! But I think another essential part of the solution is going to be re-evaluating our society's relationship with sitting. I don't think it's a coincidence that the "tipping point" for a lot of children, where their movement patterns degrade, is when they start sitting primarily in chairs, rather than on the floor.
- withdavidli 9y ago
  Think heel striking happens because of the large heels we have have in shoes. I wear zero drop shoes and focus landing on mid/front foot is much easier. Didn’t realize how different my walk is compared to others until my coworker recognized me in a different building because of the way I walk. Was also told to heel strike by my mom, makes less flopping noise doing so. She has a way of doing what blends in, doesn’t want her kids to be different, the whole largest nail gets hammered.
  - hinkley 9y ago
    You can find cheaper, but I've replaced the insoles in almost all of my shoes with Superfeet Carbons. They're a hair thinner than most insoles so they open up the toe box a little bit too, and having enough space in the toe box totally changes how I walk. (Ecco shoes tend to be low-rise already, but for some reason their insoles always squeak for me. I replace them for my sanity, not because the replacements are lower. But other brand have a taller heel). I still heel strike when I walk, but only barely. The knife edge of my foot lands just after my heel, instead of what most people do which is lift their toes a half inch to an inch. Ouch.
    - tnorthcutt 9y ago
      You might like Altra shoes; they're zero drop and have a very open toe box. I'm about 9 months into wearing them, and I love them. They felt weird for the first couple of weeks because of the open toe box, but after that anything else feels wrong.
    - withdavidli 9y ago
      I buy Lems. About $80 for sneaker when on sale. Best fit for me, I have wide feet, and look somewhat normal. They have hiking shoes too.
    - magic_beans 9y ago
      Just wear basic vans or converse. $45, zero drop, no cushion, extremely minimal.
      - withdavidli 9y ago
        definite NO on the converse, and didn't like styles on vans. I have wide feet, so classic looks are out as converse only has them in normal width, same issue with my PF Flyers.
  - overcast 9y ago
    Same, almost all of my shoes are near zero drops, including my hiking(mountain) shoes. I've always walked around the house on the balls of my feet as well. I hated hearing people stomping around on floors, and I just naturally adapted not to.
  - cuddlybacon 9y ago
    > Think heel striking happens because of the large heels we have have in shoes. I think you are right. I had to wear "normal" shoes after wearing zero-drop shoes for about a year. Within a few minutes of walking, I was back to heel striking.
- pault 9y ago
  One of the things I noticed when I was living outside of the US is that you can tell who grew up with furniture and who didn't; those who didn't can sit on their heels with their knees on their chest in perfect comfort for hours. I can barely get into that position even while hanging onto something for support.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    The most trying thing about traveling to Korea and visiting my wife's family, for me, is the extent to which you're expected to sit on the floor and eat, sleep on the floor, etc.
reneherse 9y ago
I wonder if it has to do with too much sitting in chairs? Prof. Galen Cranz discusses some of the effects on posture of western sitting styles in her book, "The Chair: Rethinking Culture, Body and Design". Though not scientific, she compares the common slump shouldered, curved spine posture of many westerners to the (better) posture of those who grew up without frequent chair sitting. It may be there is also a connection to lifting posture.
- pault 9y ago
  I left another comment up-thread, but yes, definitely. Watch someone in SE Asia or parts of Africa where people commonly work without chairs or tables; their knees are insanely flexible.
  - tomsthumb 9y ago
    It’s more likely their hips and ankles are really flexible and this lets them fully use their knees. Loss of range of motion in the knee is relatively uncommon.
  - magic_beans 9y ago
    Knees aren’t flexible. Hips are.
Retric 9y ago
I think it's a cultural weight issue. Bending your knees takes quite a bit of strength when you are morbidly obese. I also see a lot of healthy, young, and skinny people lean over to the side when getting up from a char. Instead of scooting forward then standing up.
hinkley 9y ago
I've been doing taichi for about 5 years. In addition to changing how I bend (for the better), about a year in I was in the process of renovating my gait a second time. As a person who always gets asked to 'slow down' it was a weird experience to have to ask others to do the same. Unfortunately for them now I walk faster than ever. I came to this from a world of leg and back pain. It hasn't fixed everything but I can do almost 5 times as much without tipping over into chronic joint pain. The quickest things I can relate to people that I learned from this time: 1) Never lock your joints. 2) "Lift with your knees not your back" is the wrong advice. Lifting "with your knees" is loading your quads. That and joint locking put all of the stress on the parts of your knee (cartilage especially) that are already overworked in the western posture. The correct advice is "Lift with your legs", which takes longer to explain but the Cliff's Notes version is that your legs are 3 joints and lifting with your knees is only using one set of muscles and essentially locking the rest. The right way to lift is to engage your calves, your ass, and your hams. There's a great saying I heard somewhere about the Problem with Western Posture being that we try to use our hips as a hinge joint and our knees as a ball joint. There are a lot of tight muscles in the hips and upper thighs that have to unclench to get there, and you literally feel like you're falling over while you try to sort that out. But man if you do, I've avoided half a dozen spills that should have put me in the doctor's office and one that would have sent me to rehab for torn ankle ligaments for sure. The downside of this experience has been that I have to fight an urge to analyze everyone else's posture. I end up staring at people if I'm not paying attention. I probably look like a creep. And some people make me feel sympathetic joint pain. The number of people with fallen arches is crazy.
- pault 9y ago
  I've had fallen arches since I was a kid. Is there something I can do to fix it? There was a point where I was doing a lot of barefoot running on the beach and being extra careful to focus on my ankle and foot posture, and I think it helped, but as soon as I stopped running every day I reverted to my old posture (ankles rotated slightly outwards, feet as flat as a board).
  - hinkley 9y ago
lubujackson 9y ago
It's because we are supposed to be really good at squatting, but modern life just doesn't require it. The biggest difference is not squatting to use the toilet. Until modern toilets, humans squat without sitting to poop. More sitting = less squatting, which leads to not squatting to pick up things since our muscles are underdeveloped.
- montalbano 9y ago
  I stopped sitting on toilets about 14 years ago after a camping trip when I realized how much I preferred squatting. I will never go back unless forced to due to injury.
  - bhasi 9y ago
    So what toilet setup do you use most frequently? In the western world, all the toilets are the sitting type, as opposed to the squat-type ones commonly found in India and elsewhere.
    - montalbano 9y ago
      I just lift up the toilet seat and squat over the bowl. It's only tricky on taller toilets but normally works perfectly fine. In fact, using public toilets it feels a little more hygienic as you don't actually have to touch the toilet seat or bowl. I believe it's part of the reason my upper leg muscles have remained strong even when work has put a halt on exercise for longer periods of time. I would be open about this if asked but never bring it up unsolicited in conversation as in the past I have found it regarded as outright bizarre.
      - magic_beans 9y ago
        Even if you squat over the bowl — that’s not a full squat... I’m quite familiar with this maneuver from a lifetime of squatting over public toilets to pee. Using a squat tube potty is a much more natural squat position.
    - 9y ago
eevilspock 9y ago
When I lived in Taiwan, I could from a distance tell a Chinese American apart from the local Chinese simply from the way they walked. Most of us could. It is very cultural.
occams_chainsaw 9y ago
Kids probably also do it more because they frequently fall on their face when they try to bend over, until they get the hang of the whole balance thing
justinator 9y ago
Children usually are proportioned to make squats easier as well. As an adult, not being able to air squat with parallel feet isn't necessarily a symptom of bad body mechanics, muscle imbalance, or ankle mobility. It could just mean I've gotta big booty and a small head. Which incidentally, I do.
- overcast 9y ago
  As an aside, I always found it so strange seeing men with a huge ass, and a normal sized body. Something I always associated with women, and having large hips. Sorry man!
  - justinator 9y ago
    Perhaps I should say, "Well defined"? I'm an amateur athelete, and one of my specialties is cycling. If you have proper glute activation, it gets developed. But so are my quads, hamstrings, calves, etc. I do not have very pronounced hips - my hip bones are not wide. Glutes are the biggest muscles of the body and the hardest to exhaust in endurance activities. I love my body.
    - overcast 9y ago
      Big difference between muscle ass, and a fat ass. Good job!
agumonkey 9y ago
I wonder about that too. I'm especially bad in this. I have zero flexibility and never really liked stretching I grew up stiff and abusing joints and ligaments to lift stuff. My ideas : - having longer limbs change your gestures - muscle strength and stiffness with time, which is something we do like to optimize way above "proper posture" - lack of understanding of physics and muscle control (to move in the best way you have to distribute efforts in many limbs, which is less natural, especially in societies where complex movements are rare)
- magic_beans 9y ago
  Do you do any sports or weightlifting or yoga? Sounds like you’re overthinking what comes naturally to people who use their bodies frequently.
  - agumonkey 9y ago
    None for now, I'm waiting for my knees and heart to recover. Overthinking is what I do.
buckthundaz 9y ago
Placing children in seats and forcing them to not move for entire days, with repeated exposure from age 4 and on. It's a natural movement -- culture is not natural.

Floegipoky 9y ago

Watch for your son to start heel-striking too, if he isn't already. I think you're right about the large-scale brainwashing! But I think another essential part of the solution is going to be re-evaluating our society's relationship with sitting. I don't think it's a coincidence that the "tipping point" for a lot of children, where their movement patterns degrade, is when they start sitting primarily in chairs, rather than on the floor.

withdavidli 9y ago
Think heel striking happens because of the large heels we have have in shoes. I wear zero drop shoes and focus landing on mid/front foot is much easier. Didn’t realize how different my walk is compared to others until my coworker recognized me in a different building because of the way I walk. Was also told to heel strike by my mom, makes less flopping noise doing so. She has a way of doing what blends in, doesn’t want her kids to be different, the whole largest nail gets hammered.
- hinkley 9y ago
  You can find cheaper, but I've replaced the insoles in almost all of my shoes with Superfeet Carbons. They're a hair thinner than most insoles so they open up the toe box a little bit too, and having enough space in the toe box totally changes how I walk. (Ecco shoes tend to be low-rise already, but for some reason their insoles always squeak for me. I replace them for my sanity, not because the replacements are lower. But other brand have a taller heel). I still heel strike when I walk, but only barely. The knife edge of my foot lands just after my heel, instead of what most people do which is lift their toes a half inch to an inch. Ouch.
  - tnorthcutt 9y ago
    You might like Altra shoes; they're zero drop and have a very open toe box. I'm about 9 months into wearing them, and I love them. They felt weird for the first couple of weeks because of the open toe box, but after that anything else feels wrong.
  - withdavidli 9y ago
    I buy Lems. About $80 for sneaker when on sale. Best fit for me, I have wide feet, and look somewhat normal. They have hiking shoes too.
  - magic_beans 9y ago
    Just wear basic vans or converse. $45, zero drop, no cushion, extremely minimal.
    - withdavidli 9y ago
      definite NO on the converse, and didn't like styles on vans. I have wide feet, so classic looks are out as converse only has them in normal width, same issue with my PF Flyers.
- overcast 9y ago
  Same, almost all of my shoes are near zero drops, including my hiking(mountain) shoes. I've always walked around the house on the balls of my feet as well. I hated hearing people stomping around on floors, and I just naturally adapted not to.
- cuddlybacon 9y ago
  > Think heel striking happens because of the large heels we have have in shoes. I think you are right. I had to wear "normal" shoes after wearing zero-drop shoes for about a year. Within a few minutes of walking, I was back to heel striking.
pault 9y ago
One of the things I noticed when I was living outside of the US is that you can tell who grew up with furniture and who didn't; those who didn't can sit on their heels with their knees on their chest in perfect comfort for hours. I can barely get into that position even while hanging onto something for support.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  The most trying thing about traveling to Korea and visiting my wife's family, for me, is the extent to which you're expected to sit on the floor and eat, sleep on the floor, etc.

reneherse 9y ago

I wonder if it has to do with too much sitting in chairs? Prof. Galen Cranz discusses some of the effects on posture of western sitting styles in her book, "The Chair: Rethinking Culture, Body and Design". Though not scientific, she compares the common slump shouldered, curved spine posture of many westerners to the (better) posture of those who grew up without frequent chair sitting. It may be there is also a connection to lifting posture.

pault 9y ago
I left another comment up-thread, but yes, definitely. Watch someone in SE Asia or parts of Africa where people commonly work without chairs or tables; their knees are insanely flexible.
- tomsthumb 9y ago
  It’s more likely their hips and ankles are really flexible and this lets them fully use their knees. Loss of range of motion in the knee is relatively uncommon.
- magic_beans 9y ago
  Knees aren’t flexible. Hips are.

Retric 9y ago

I think it's a cultural weight issue. Bending your knees takes quite a bit of strength when you are morbidly obese. I also see a lot of healthy, young, and skinny people lean over to the side when getting up from a char. Instead of scooting forward then standing up.

hinkley 9y ago

I've been doing taichi for about 5 years. In addition to changing how I bend (for the better), about a year in I was in the process of renovating my gait a second time. As a person who always gets asked to 'slow down' it was a weird experience to have to ask others to do the same. Unfortunately for them now I walk faster than ever. I came to this from a world of leg and back pain. It hasn't fixed everything but I can do almost 5 times as much without tipping over into chronic joint pain. The quickest things I can relate to people that I learned from this time: 1) Never lock your joints. 2) "Lift with your knees not your back" is the wrong advice. Lifting "with your knees" is loading your quads. That and joint locking put all of the stress on the parts of your knee (cartilage especially) that are already overworked in the western posture. The correct advice is "Lift with your legs", which takes longer to explain but the Cliff's Notes version is that your legs are 3 joints and lifting with your knees is only using one set of muscles and essentially locking the rest. The right way to lift is to engage your calves, your ass, and your hams. There's a great saying I heard somewhere about the Problem with Western Posture being that we try to use our hips as a hinge joint and our knees as a ball joint. There are a lot of tight muscles in the hips and upper thighs that have to unclench to get there, and you literally feel like you're falling over while you try to sort that out. But man if you do, I've avoided half a dozen spills that should have put me in the doctor's office and one that would have sent me to rehab for torn ankle ligaments for sure. The downside of this experience has been that I have to fight an urge to analyze everyone else's posture. I end up staring at people if I'm not paying attention. I probably look like a creep. And some people make me feel sympathetic joint pain. The number of people with fallen arches is crazy.

pault 9y ago
I've had fallen arches since I was a kid. Is there something I can do to fix it? There was a point where I was doing a lot of barefoot running on the beach and being extra careful to focus on my ankle and foot posture, and I think it helped, but as soon as I stopped running every day I reverted to my old posture (ankles rotated slightly outwards, feet as flat as a board).
- hinkley 9y ago

lubujackson 9y ago

It's because we are supposed to be really good at squatting, but modern life just doesn't require it. The biggest difference is not squatting to use the toilet. Until modern toilets, humans squat without sitting to poop. More sitting = less squatting, which leads to not squatting to pick up things since our muscles are underdeveloped.

montalbano 9y ago
I stopped sitting on toilets about 14 years ago after a camping trip when I realized how much I preferred squatting. I will never go back unless forced to due to injury.
- bhasi 9y ago
  So what toilet setup do you use most frequently? In the western world, all the toilets are the sitting type, as opposed to the squat-type ones commonly found in India and elsewhere.
  - montalbano 9y ago
    I just lift up the toilet seat and squat over the bowl. It's only tricky on taller toilets but normally works perfectly fine. In fact, using public toilets it feels a little more hygienic as you don't actually have to touch the toilet seat or bowl. I believe it's part of the reason my upper leg muscles have remained strong even when work has put a halt on exercise for longer periods of time. I would be open about this if asked but never bring it up unsolicited in conversation as in the past I have found it regarded as outright bizarre.
    - magic_beans 9y ago
      Even if you squat over the bowl — that’s not a full squat... I’m quite familiar with this maneuver from a lifetime of squatting over public toilets to pee. Using a squat tube potty is a much more natural squat position.
  - 9y ago

eevilspock 9y ago

When I lived in Taiwan, I could from a distance tell a Chinese American apart from the local Chinese simply from the way they walked. Most of us could. It is very cultural.

occams_chainsaw 9y ago

Kids probably also do it more because they frequently fall on their face when they try to bend over, until they get the hang of the whole balance thing

justinator 9y ago

Children usually are proportioned to make squats easier as well. As an adult, not being able to air squat with parallel feet isn't necessarily a symptom of bad body mechanics, muscle imbalance, or ankle mobility. It could just mean I've gotta big booty and a small head. Which incidentally, I do.

overcast 9y ago
As an aside, I always found it so strange seeing men with a huge ass, and a normal sized body. Something I always associated with women, and having large hips. Sorry man!
- justinator 9y ago
  Perhaps I should say, "Well defined"? I'm an amateur athelete, and one of my specialties is cycling. If you have proper glute activation, it gets developed. But so are my quads, hamstrings, calves, etc. I do not have very pronounced hips - my hip bones are not wide. Glutes are the biggest muscles of the body and the hardest to exhaust in endurance activities. I love my body.
  - overcast 9y ago
    Big difference between muscle ass, and a fat ass. Good job!

agumonkey 9y ago

I wonder about that too. I'm especially bad in this. I have zero flexibility and never really liked stretching I grew up stiff and abusing joints and ligaments to lift stuff. My ideas : - having longer limbs change your gestures - muscle strength and stiffness with time, which is something we do like to optimize way above "proper posture" - lack of understanding of physics and muscle control (to move in the best way you have to distribute efforts in many limbs, which is less natural, especially in societies where complex movements are rare)

magic_beans 9y ago
Do you do any sports or weightlifting or yoga? Sounds like you’re overthinking what comes naturally to people who use their bodies frequently.
- agumonkey 9y ago
  None for now, I'm waiting for my knees and heart to recover. Overthinking is what I do.

buckthundaz 9y ago

Placing children in seats and forcing them to not move for entire days, with repeated exposure from age 4 and on. It's a natural movement -- culture is not natural.