Posture 


Now we all understand the importance of posture – in fact, we have already published a few articles on the matter from our resident beast, Coach Fletch!

Now for an in-depth look at posture, you can certainly see the above articles. However, this article is much much simpler. Think of it as a play-by-play, a how-to on manipulating that posture of yours.

We don’t all have the time to go to the gym or spend hours going through “corrective exercises” to rectify posture. However, we do all know good posture is very, very important. Poor posture sucks and has so many negative carryovers that I truly couldn’t name them all. However, today’s society is, unfortunately, ingraining in us this poor-postured position.

Poor posture involves a good few things but for the sake of this article let’s focus on a couple of the bigger and most common issues:

LOWER BODY:

  1. Tightness – Hip Flexors.
  2. Poor activation – Glutes.

UPPER BODY:

  1. Tightness – Pecs and Lats.
  2. Poor activation – Upper Back.

There’s much more we could incorporate, but as you’ll see in the program to follow we’ve gone for a very simple yet effective plan… (KISS = Keep It Simple Stupid) More importantly though it is a plan you can do at home.

Next up is a little slogan well-known in the fitness industry and one we like to use here at GRASPP – mobilise the anterior, activate the posterior. You would do well to mobilise all the joints you can see in the mirror (ankles, hips, shoulders) and activate all the muscles you can’t (glutes, upper back). Now with a slightly more in-depth look at the upper body, we see that when we talk about the shoulder I actually mean the muscles surrounding it. This would be the lats, pecs and thoracic spine. The lats and pecs are internal rotators which are the enemy of good posture. They pull our shoulders forwards and down, NOT what we want. When looking at the lower body we see the same thing. The more we sit down the shorter our hip flexors get. Now the hip flexors are made up of several muscles, but we’ll just call them the hip complex.

A “Normal” Day


With all that being said, see if this day sounds familiar:

  • Wake up, get out of bed and get ready to start your day.
  • Travel to work in some sort of sitting down fashion.
  • Arrive at work go and sit at your desk.
  • Spend ALL day at your desk, breaking only for lunch where you go and sit down to eat.
  • Travel home from work in some sort of sitting down fashion.
  • Get home sit on the settee and watch TV.

Now if we look into the above in a little detail you’ll notice that pretty much the whole day is spent sitting down. This promotes the previous mentioned ‘big issues’ which causes poor posture. Sprinkle in us being on our phones 24/7 in this day and age, which further ads to crappy posture by constantly rounding our shoulders hunching over and looking downwards to the screen.

So the usual fix is to pay a visit to the gym or get a coach to help solve the issue. An excellent first step. However, here lies the problem with simply going to the gym, or having that one session once a week. It’s ONE session a week. What happens for the other 6 days? Your body will naturally revert back to negative posture. So how do I fix this issue I hear you ask? I don’t want to attend the gym 2/3/4 times a week, and I certainly don’t want to see a coach that many times. Who has the money for that!! I hear you.

The answer is this – Micro-dosing.

Micro-Dosing 


This is an easy method which adds in volume, repetition, and more importantly engrains into our body good posture. For you more training savvy folk, this is simply frequency training.

The trick to this is doing the work ‘little and often’. Simple stuff that can be done every day that will naturally benefit your posture whilst spending zero time in the gym, and spending zero money on coaching.

So the plan:

Mobility circuit: 30-90s stretch each – do one after another in a mini circuit: 3 continuous rounds
Exercise Order Area of stretch Name Video
1 Hip flexors Couch Stretch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoPmgjyj9-Q
2 Pecs Blackburns https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O89_9BcHtUY&list=PLc92FIc3sqXeZF1MlzLwCk13qh8ODY7xC&index=4&t=0s
3 Lats Static Lat Stretch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GriAL_TBDao

 

 

Activation circuit: do one after another in a mini circuit: 3 continuous rounds
Exercise order Area of exercise Name Repetitions Video
1 Glutes Frog Pump 10-25 reps https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQ62r2V7Lw8

 

2 Upper Back Y-W-T-I 3x10s hold in each position (increase when you can) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yh5qIXA66Ig

 

As you can see we’ve kept this incredibly simple. No equipment needed and organised for complete convenience. As said earlier, the following plan can be done every morning, every evening, twice a week, four times a week, and most importantly it can be done at home. Hell, do it in front of the TV. I’d naturally start small, then add more days, and do them as and when you can.

Progressive Example:

Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5 Week 6
Monday Posture plan
Tuesday Posture plan Posture plan Posture plan Posture plan Posture plan Posture plan
Wednesday Posture plan Posture plan Posture plan
Thursday Posture plan Posture plan Posture plan Posture plan Posture plan
Friday Posture plan Posture plan
Saturday Posture plan Posture plan Posture plan Posture plan Posture plan Posture plan
Sunday Posture plan Posture plan Posture plan Posture plan

Stick to this plan, keep increasing the amount you put in and we guarantee success.

Be ready for anything,

Coach Sale.

Author - Luke Sale - Head Coach & Mentor

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