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Everyone I know with good posture are physically fit, none of whom have “retrained a faulty idea of one’s position in space”. The sense we have that someone is

Everyone I know with good posture are physically fit, none of whom have “retrained a faulty idea of one’s position in space”. The sense we have that someone is fit generally comes from their posture. Does this idea-retraining work as well as the gym? Do you know examples of unfit people with great posture through idea-retraining? Of course we all know unfit people who are always straining to “sit up straight” and so forth, which always seems unnatural. Perhaps these people are the target market for this idea-retraining?

yodon 8y ago
Much of this is stronger than average back muscles helping to straighten the spine and pull the shoulders into a more correct position. More general core strength then helps stabilize the body as a whole, increasing your awareness of their physicality and posture. Rowers, for example, tend to be almost physically incapable of standing with poor posture because of the excess back and shoulder strength they develop.
- taneq 8y ago
  That's what I've found - the degree of "computer-nerd stoop" that I have directly relates to how much upper body work (and specifically back-work) I've been doing. A few dozen reps of seated row / horizontal row a week, or a lengthy motorcycle commute for a few weeks, completely 'fixes' my posture.
  - JimboOmega 8y ago
    As someone who commutes by motorcycle daily, how foes that fix anything? You're always hunched over on the bike
    - taneq 8y ago
      Well, it depends on your exact bike and commute. A large-bore naked bike plus several places on the commute which allow spirited up to highway speeds combine to a pretty good back workout. I guess a slow commute in purely suburban / urban traffic on a supersports or a scooter wouldn't be as useful though.
      - fjsolwmv 8y ago
        On a scooter your choices are hunched over, or sitting up straight going under 25mph or getting knocked over by wind.
        taneq 8y ago
        Yeah, I don't think a scooter qualifies.
throway45981 8y ago
Yes, there are obese people with excellent posture, just as there are athletes who have terrible posture as soon as they walk off the playing field. The stuff about tight muscles or weak muscles is nonsense: good posture is usually well within the center of your range of motion. You can't analyze human motion using statics. The fact is that not only is your body an incredibly complex tensegrity structure, it is also hooked to earth's most impressive control system via millions of inputs and outputs. Posture is an aspect of the control system, not the physical structure. Source: I am trained as an Alexander Teacher.
- paulsutter 8y ago
  Have any videos of obese people with excellent posture? Especially while walking or performing ordinary tasks? How much do you charge for this idea-retraining? Why are you hiding behind a throwaway?
  - throway45981 8y ago
    Other people on the thread seem to see a distinction between fitness and posture. If you can't see it, video probably won't convince you. HN has become a very uncivil place, don't you think? I don't even remember the name of my old account, it's been so long since I posted here.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - ivanhoe 8y ago
    I can only presume that most of these obese people with excellent posture were at some point (probably in their youth) physically very active. I remember my grandpa walking as straight as an arrow, although he was old (over 80) and fairly obese by that time. But that's because he was very athletic as younger, and still had kept a significant muscle mass although he was fat and out of shape on the first look. Proper posture simply requires that you have enough muscles that are not just strong, but also balanced in strength and length and flexibility in all directions.
truculation 8y ago
>The sense we have that someone is fit generally comes from their posture. Exceptions I've noted are joggers with hunched shoulders, splayed feet, leaping too high off the ground, and so on. By no means uncommon. >Does this idea-retraining work as well as the gym? Not a gym user but I gained a cm in height within a week of encountering the Alexander Technique (AT). My guess is that the best gym users have good posture too, if only for safety's sake. It's not so much about fitness and muscular bulk but about whether you are receptive to the proprioceptive feedback from those muscles and joints. AT has a unique way of pointing you towards these sensations but it relies on personal contact with a teacher.
- deleted 8y ago
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- deleted 8y ago
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crazygringo 8y ago
Because good posture is effortless and our body is built for balance, it doesn't require anything but a minimal level of fitness. And actually, physical strength can sometimes exacerbate posture issues rather than solve them, as it introduces additional muscle tightness or tightness imbalances (e.g. bench presses leading to tight pecs leading to hunched shoulders, or running leading to tight hamstrings leading to exaggerated spinal curve). For me personally, the gym made my posture worse, and it was only through extensive body awareness practice (like AT), stretching, and relaxation techniques that I was able to solve posture problems. You know how they say abs are made in the kitchen, not the gym? Same thing with posture -- made through awareness, not the gym.
- Jommi 8y ago
  Is it really honest to say "gym made my posture worse", when actually it stemmed from overtraining certain muscle groups over-proportionately? What do you think of the thesis that the right gym exercises might tune your muscle's "normal state" to more closely resemble "healthy" posture?
  - crazygringo 8y ago
    It wasn't over-training at all, it was simply the fact I hadn't incorporated extensive stretching. Once I stretched and my muscles had their full range of motion, that fixed it. (If I was unclear, that was the balance I was referring to above -- of tightness, not of strength.) I started going to the gym because of that thesis, and then I discovered it didn't work. From what I understand, our muscles are in balance with each other not according to their strength (except in cases of extreme imbalance), but according to the amount of tension our brain signals for them to maintain. This signaling arises from our mental image of the position our body should be in. For me personally, for example, I was sitting, standing and walking, always leaning slightly back, which my body compensated for with an overly curved lower spine and overly tight abdominal muscles. Standing straight literally felt like I would topple forwards, because I had an incorrect sensation of body positioning. Once I learned to become aware of that, it took me a couple of weeks to actually stand straight, and learn that as the new normal. And this took care of the other problems. It had nothing to do with the balance of muscle strengths, and everything to do with my perceptions. (Extensive hamstring stretching was also necessary, but not sufficient, to make standing straight possible.) I'm not saying don't go to the gym -- I love the gym! -- what I'm saying is, if you want to fix your posture, you have to change how use you your body. Stretching can be necessary to unlock tight areas, but lack of or imbalanced strength is not the issue in an otherwise healthy adult.
greenhatman 8y ago
Seratonin improves posture in crustaceans [1]. I think it probably does in humans as well. Anecdotally, when I exercise regularly, good posture comes naturally to me. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11800033 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11800033

yodon 8y ago

Much of this is stronger than average back muscles helping to straighten the spine and pull the shoulders into a more correct position. More general core strength then helps stabilize the body as a whole, increasing your awareness of their physicality and posture. Rowers, for example, tend to be almost physically incapable of standing with poor posture because of the excess back and shoulder strength they develop.

taneq 8y ago
That's what I've found - the degree of "computer-nerd stoop" that I have directly relates to how much upper body work (and specifically back-work) I've been doing. A few dozen reps of seated row / horizontal row a week, or a lengthy motorcycle commute for a few weeks, completely 'fixes' my posture.
- JimboOmega 8y ago
  As someone who commutes by motorcycle daily, how foes that fix anything? You're always hunched over on the bike
  - taneq 8y ago
    Well, it depends on your exact bike and commute. A large-bore naked bike plus several places on the commute which allow spirited up to highway speeds combine to a pretty good back workout. I guess a slow commute in purely suburban / urban traffic on a supersports or a scooter wouldn't be as useful though.
    - fjsolwmv 8y ago
      On a scooter your choices are hunched over, or sitting up straight going under 25mph or getting knocked over by wind.
      - taneq 8y ago
        Yeah, I don't think a scooter qualifies.

throway45981 8y ago

Yes, there are obese people with excellent posture, just as there are athletes who have terrible posture as soon as they walk off the playing field. The stuff about tight muscles or weak muscles is nonsense: good posture is usually well within the center of your range of motion. You can't analyze human motion using statics. The fact is that not only is your body an incredibly complex tensegrity structure, it is also hooked to earth's most impressive control system via millions of inputs and outputs. Posture is an aspect of the control system, not the physical structure. Source: I am trained as an Alexander Teacher.

paulsutter 8y ago
Have any videos of obese people with excellent posture? Especially while walking or performing ordinary tasks? How much do you charge for this idea-retraining? Why are you hiding behind a throwaway?
- throway45981 8y ago
  Other people on the thread seem to see a distinction between fitness and posture. If you can't see it, video probably won't convince you. HN has become a very uncivil place, don't you think? I don't even remember the name of my old account, it's been so long since I posted here.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- ivanhoe 8y ago
  I can only presume that most of these obese people with excellent posture were at some point (probably in their youth) physically very active. I remember my grandpa walking as straight as an arrow, although he was old (over 80) and fairly obese by that time. But that's because he was very athletic as younger, and still had kept a significant muscle mass although he was fat and out of shape on the first look. Proper posture simply requires that you have enough muscles that are not just strong, but also balanced in strength and length and flexibility in all directions.

truculation 8y ago

>The sense we have that someone is fit generally comes from their posture. Exceptions I've noted are joggers with hunched shoulders, splayed feet, leaping too high off the ground, and so on. By no means uncommon. >Does this idea-retraining work as well as the gym? Not a gym user but I gained a cm in height within a week of encountering the Alexander Technique (AT). My guess is that the best gym users have good posture too, if only for safety's sake. It's not so much about fitness and muscular bulk but about whether you are receptive to the proprioceptive feedback from those muscles and joints. AT has a unique way of pointing you towards these sensations but it relies on personal contact with a teacher.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

crazygringo 8y ago

Because good posture is effortless and our body is built for balance, it doesn't require anything but a minimal level of fitness. And actually, physical strength can sometimes exacerbate posture issues rather than solve them, as it introduces additional muscle tightness or tightness imbalances (e.g. bench presses leading to tight pecs leading to hunched shoulders, or running leading to tight hamstrings leading to exaggerated spinal curve). For me personally, the gym made my posture worse, and it was only through extensive body awareness practice (like AT), stretching, and relaxation techniques that I was able to solve posture problems. You know how they say abs are made in the kitchen, not the gym? Same thing with posture -- made through awareness, not the gym.

Jommi 8y ago
Is it really honest to say "gym made my posture worse", when actually it stemmed from overtraining certain muscle groups over-proportionately? What do you think of the thesis that the right gym exercises might tune your muscle's "normal state" to more closely resemble "healthy" posture?
- crazygringo 8y ago
  It wasn't over-training at all, it was simply the fact I hadn't incorporated extensive stretching. Once I stretched and my muscles had their full range of motion, that fixed it. (If I was unclear, that was the balance I was referring to above -- of tightness, not of strength.) I started going to the gym because of that thesis, and then I discovered it didn't work. From what I understand, our muscles are in balance with each other not according to their strength (except in cases of extreme imbalance), but according to the amount of tension our brain signals for them to maintain. This signaling arises from our mental image of the position our body should be in. For me personally, for example, I was sitting, standing and walking, always leaning slightly back, which my body compensated for with an overly curved lower spine and overly tight abdominal muscles. Standing straight literally felt like I would topple forwards, because I had an incorrect sensation of body positioning. Once I learned to become aware of that, it took me a couple of weeks to actually stand straight, and learn that as the new normal. And this took care of the other problems. It had nothing to do with the balance of muscle strengths, and everything to do with my perceptions. (Extensive hamstring stretching was also necessary, but not sufficient, to make standing straight possible.) I'm not saying don't go to the gym -- I love the gym! -- what I'm saying is, if you want to fix your posture, you have to change how use you your body. Stretching can be necessary to unlock tight areas, but lack of or imbalanced strength is not the issue in an otherwise healthy adult.

greenhatman 8y ago

Seratonin improves posture in crustaceans [1]. I think it probably does in humans as well. Anecdotally, when I exercise regularly, good posture comes naturally to me. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11800033 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11800033