Your Definitive Guide to Understanding and Improving Your Posture (Part 2)

There is no such thing as good or bad posture

As a fitness professional, someone’s posture gives me a lot of good information about their body. But it’s not because there is such a thing as good or bad posture, at least as it relates to our likelihood of experiencing pain. This is a myth that has been thoroughly debunked in the research, but has not made its way into mainstream fitness culture yet. The most current review of the evidence so far has been done by Slater et al, in their piece “Sit Up Straight: Time to Reevaluate.” In this review, they examine the evidence, in particular another systematic review of 99 studies done by Kwon et al in 2011 that showed strong evidence against posture being causally related to lower back pain. Frankly, there has never been strong evidence that any kind of posture, whether sitting, standing, or lifting caused back pain. But now we have strong evidence that it does not. 

But where did this idea come from? Well it turns out we have taken ideas from German militarists in the 19’th century, where standing up tall was essential for demonstrating characteristics the military deemed ideal, and brought them forward into 2024 without a second thought. We now associate standing up tall with being a safe and strong position, even though there is no evidence to support this narrative.