How to Fix Bad Posture (NOT what you want to hear)

Do you want to know how to fix bad posture to reduce pain, improve performance, or simply to look better? To give you an informed answer, I analyzed the current scientific evidence on this topic.

I also spoke about this with some of the most respected and well-known experts worldwide.

And what you’re about to discover might not be, what you WANT to hear. But it certainly is, what you NEED to hear about this topic.

The Big Problem

You might know that I offer online pain coaching.

Before people start the coaching, we have this free pain analysis call on Zoom to see if I can help them.

And you won’t believe how many people tell me in this call that their poor posture is the cause of their pain.

We’re talking:

• tight hip flexors or hamstrings
• rounded backs
• anterior pelvic tilts
• foot deformities
• etc.

And this is a problem, because that is waaaay too reductionist and incorrect. I’ll explain why in a moment.

Now I need you to understand, why that is a problem. Because most people have tried stretching, massages, and many other things.

Yet their pain is still there or comes back very shortly after treatment. You might have experienced that yourself.

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What Role Does Posture Actually Play?

We’ll touch on pain and performance here. Let’s first cover pain though, because that’s most likely the reason why you want to fix your posture.

How Does Posture Affect Pain?

I’ll give you two examples to explain more vividly:

Example 1: Muscle Strain

Imagine you have a muscle strain in your biceps. Now every time you contract or stretch your biceps, you have pain.

I tell you that your pain will get better if you:

• Position your arm in shoulder internal rotation
• Bend your arm about 100°
• Abduct your pinky
• Tilt your head to the affected side
• Try to maintain this position for as much as possible

What happens now? Your pain actually does get better. Was it the special posture I had you adopt? Hell no. I just had you avoid stuff that is sensitive at the moment.

I wanted this first example to be super obvious. But now let’s look at a second, much trickier one.

Example 2: Lower Back Pain

Imagine you have lower back pain.

Now I tell you that your hip flexors are the cause because they pull on your pelvis and tilt it forward.

This causes an extension in your lumbar spine, which then leads to back pain due to overuse.

Now, I have you perform stretches for the hip flexors.

And I give you strengthening exercises for your glutes. They’re supposed to pull your pelvis back into the “correct” position.

And once again: after a couple of exercise sessions, your pain improves.

You would assume that my biomechanical explanation was correct. Except it wasn’t.

Posture is extremely variable, as Schmidt et al. (2018) were able to prove in their study.

Let me quote a study by Lederman here:

In the last two decades the PSB model has been eroded by clinical studies examining the relationship between postural-structural-biomechanical factors and lower back pain.

– Lederman 2011

What might be weird for you could be completely normal for another person.

Just to show you a very nice example here:

A study by Richards et al. (2021) showed something interesting about forward head posture (FHP).

If you were to believe in the posture talk you would assume, that people with FHP have more persistent neck pain. Well, it turns out that for some subgroups FHP correlates with LESS persistent neck pain. (Richards et al. 2021)

Long story short: biomechanical explanations often sound reasonable. But research suggests, that they rarely correlate with pain.

So can we say that people like Dr. Mike Israetel are correct with statements like this:

Posture is the single biggest cesspool of bullsh*t ever!

I would choose different words but he has a good point here!

I wouldn’t say that posture can NEVER matter. But especially as far as pain goes: we have moved past this simplistic way of thinking.

By the way: if you are dealing with persistent pain, my team and I can help you. Click this link to learn more about our pain coaching

Let’s now touch on the posture and performance.

How Does Posture Affect Performance?

Posture does affect performance. There may be positions in your sport that you have to adopt.

Let’s take Olympic Weightlifting because it’s a very straightforward example. You have two lifts here: the Snatch and the Clean & Jerk.

For both lifts, you need a great overhead mobility of your shoulder. If you cannot get into this posture, your performance will be worse – period.

The question is though: do we have to call it “posture” in this regard?

I would rather say that you need a certain type of mobility, strength, or coordination for your sports. Not a special “posture” – but that’s just semantics.

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How to Fix Bad Posture?

As you’ve learned so far: your posture doesn’t need any fixing!

Say you want to change your posture anyway – for aesthetic reasons for example.

How do you achieve that?

Here’s a quick snippet of an interview I had with Greg Lehman. He’s one of the most respected people in the field of physiotherapy:

Changing posture is easy. You just say: I’m going to change my posture and you stand up straighter or you slump. There’s nothing difficult about it. You consciously change your posture. That’s it. That’s how postural exercises work. It creates a new habit of holding yourself. You just consciously think: I’m going to be more upright or I’m going to be more slumped. – Greg Lehman

I know this sounds too simple to be true – but it is.

The hard part is finding a way to remind yourself of changing your posture. That’s where working with environmental constraints can come in very handy.

That’s an idea that I picked up from Dr. Sam Spinelli. He is a doctor of physiotherapy.

The example he gave was:

Say you want to slouch less and be more upright. You could place a seat wedge on your chair. The wedge makes it much harder for you to slouch. This is an environmental constraint that reinforces your posture change.

Another option would be to work with kinesio tape.

Say you want to get rid of your rounded shoulders. You could position the tape in a way that pulls on your skin, whenever you round your shoulders.

So between your shoulder blades for example.

The tape itself doesn’t change your posture (even though many people think so). It’s way too weak for that. But you can use the stretch on your skin as a reminder to consciously change your posture again.

You can listen to both interviews here:

• EP26: Biomechanics, Pain & Assessments w/ Greg Lehman
• EP19: Deep Dive w/ Dr. Sam Spinelli

Summary & Next Steps

Many think poor posture causes pain, but this view is too simple. Treatments like stretching often don’t provide lasting relief.

Changing your posture can help with pain. The reason is that your current posture might be sensitive! There’s nothing inherently wrong with it.

Posture can matter in sports performance. The question is: do we have to call it “posture” here?

If you do want to change posture, you can do that immediately. You only have to consciously think about it and do it. Your main job is to make a habit out of it. Environmental constraints can help here!

Also – there are a lot of myths about pain out there. Continue with this article to find out about the top 9 myths you have to stop believing.

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