It’s a new year with a fresh start ahead of us.  I decided to add a small New Year’s resolution to your list. I wanted to discuss something that is both relevant to your physical health and your personal wellness.  I figured posture is a great place to start.  Good posture conveys confidence in both you and the person looking at you.  Additionally, we don’t have time to deal with the consequences of posture-related injuries.

Educating yourself is a key step towards healing and being preventative. So here is a short anatomy and biomechanics lesson on posture and a few simple things you can do to address it.  While there is a large complex system of back muscles that maintain posture and coordinate shoulder and hip movements.  For simplicity purposes, I am going to talk specifically about the two major movers in the back: your traps and lats.  These dominate or assist in the majority of the movements that are required from our spine and shoulder when we are discussing posture and proper mechanics.  So understanding how to properly develop these muscles will improve overall function of your back musculature. I also will share a few other key concepts about maintaining good posture and address other muscle groups that contribute, but lets start first with the muscles that keep us upright.

The Lattisimus Dorsi Muscle (Lats):

The wing-like muscle under your armpits has a handful of functions that help move your shoulder complex and your trunk. It is huge, and plays a primary role in squeezing your shoulder blades together.  It can be highly utilized when you are doing unilateral (single arm) pulling by assisting in the rotation of your trunk while stabilizing your shoulder during that exercise. It is also a muscle that will  help maintain an erect mid-spine.  This muscle functions most effectively when your shoulders are properly aligned over your torso.  Pulling down from overhead with your elbows wide will require direct work from this muscle. Its strength and support fades as shoulders roll forward and posture worsens. While it does not boast the highest importance to posture it is absolutely necessary for postural stability, keeping our backs erect and functional back mobility.  Lats are often underdeveloped and weak in ordinary individuals.  This weakness stems from poor mechanics in the shoulders, often from poor posture.

The Trapezius Muscle Complex (Traps):

This is a muscle that has three primary functions and is divided in such a way. 

1.     Upper Trapezius: The upper trap is most identifiable.  If highly developed it gives off the illusion that your neck does not exist.  Its primary job is to elevate the shoulders and shoulder blades.  In addition to elevating the shoulder blades it will also squeeze them together.  

2.     Middle Trapezius: The middle trap is the part of the muscle that spans from the back of your shoulder to your spine. It is a narrow band of muscle travelling across your back its primary job is to pull the shoulder blades together. 

3.     Lower Trapezius: The lower trap is the part of the muscle that makes a large “V” shape through the middle part of your back. Its job is to pull the shoulder blades down as well as squeeze them together. While drawing shoulder blades down, it keeps the shoulders and mid-spine from rolling forward, helping maintain an erect posture.

A solid balance in strength between this large group of muscle creates better shoulder mechanics and will vastly improve postural awareness.  Imbalances between these muscles results in chronic conditions like neck arthritis, neuropathies, shoulder pain, rotator cuff injuries, the list goes on…

The Dilemma With Upper Traps….

These muscles are the dominant muscles in this group. They are short and stout capable of supporting large amounts of weight.  (Notice how you shrug your shoulders often just before you lift something really heavy.) Another thing we know about upper traps is they get used when we are stressed or focused.  This is partly because of the position we find ourselves in when focusing, which is close to the screen or activity; this actually engages our brains more effectively in most cases so it can become habitual. Moving your head forward will naturally roll your shoulders forward.  Stress can naturally induce a shrug for extended periods without our conscious minds thinking about it. Over time this creates painful aches in the upper trap and other muscles as well as degeneration in surrounding joints. While being overstretched creates postural issues, being overused from stress or bad habits will create poor movement patterns and weakness in other parts of the back musculature.  These patterns create a list of problems including neck dysfunction, shoulder pain, neuropathies, arthritis and long-term rotator cuff injury.  The solution is simple—like a balanced diet, a variety of healthy motions and postures need to be practiced.  All muscle groups need to be included to have the healthy back and shoulders that we all yearn for with confidence splaying out of our chest.

Don’t Forget The Other Two Traps….

The middle and lower traps are much less utilized during normal movement patterns in most people I work with.  Due to the combination of postural changes, muscle habit, a lack appropriate teaching and overuse of the upper trapezius, specific use of the middle and lower traps can become more difficult to sequence.

We will ultimately use the strongest muscle for a task.  If pulling open a heavy door is easier when you shrug your shoulders up first, then that is what you will do.  The problem is the middle trap is designed to create that pulling motion but upper trap dominance will overtake the movement and the middle traps will get weakened and over stretched This makes it more difficult to squeeze the shoulder blades together properly.

The lower trap is even weaker because it is under constant stress from the upper trap being shrugged up and the shoulders being rolled forward. This puts it on stretch and weakens it over time as well.  This muscle’s action improves alignment of the spine, improves mechanics of the shoulder and thus decreases the occurrence of postural-related injury, not to mention improves your posture.

2 More Consequences Of Poor Posture….

There are two other key muscle groups in the front of your body that are significantly altered when posture is poor.

1.    One group is the Deep neck flexor group (DNF).  These muscles are located in the front of your neck just below and behind your jaw.  The DNF get abnormally stretched and weakened, similar to the mid and lower traps, when our shoulders and head are slouched forward. They play a key role in retracting, or drawing the head backwards while keeping our eyes level—a key movement when discussing posture.

2.    The other muscle group to consider always with posture is your pectorals.  They are the massive muscles that span across our chest.  There is a pec minor muscle deep to the pec major muscle.  This group’s primary job is to pull the shoulders forward and inward. When there is excessive slouching, these muscles will adaptively shorten, or get tight because they are resting too long in a shortened state.  Additionally, this muscle may be overdeveloped from strengthening the pecs and chest more often than the muscles in your back.  This has been an observation of mine that habit and outdated training methods have created obsessions with chest development.  Without proper back training to complement the chest training, postural issues may develop.

320 Players In Posture….

Finally, it is important to note that there are approximately 320 pairs of muscles in your back that contribute to posture.  Many of these are small “stabilizer” muscles designed to create only small movements and/or stabilize spinal segments.  Learning the basic mechanics of your trapezius and Latissimus muscles will improve your ability to develop all of those groups.   For example, your rhomboids are another key muscle group that act in pulling your shoulder blades together.  Developing your middle traps and lats pulling your shoulder blades together will simultaneously improve your rhomboid function as well.  Your erector spinae muscle groups are designed to help maintain a more erect back.  Movement patterns that strengthen your lower traps and lats will develop the erector spinae as well. Good mechanics and good habits will ensure the proper muscles are developed.

As I stated before, good posture is related to good mental and physical health.  I am a firm believer that the perception of good posture is confidence. This goes for both the people who observe you and as well as your own self-perception. When we are confident, we are better versions of ourselves.  If we can be confident and prevent debilitating injury by addressing a simple issue, then why not make it a priority? So take these 6 tips with you to work or your next workout so you are properly developing your posture.

6 Tips To Improve Posture….

1.    Pulling or rowing exercises at various angles will target different parts of your back.  For example, pulling an exercise band from below you towards your chest targets the upper trap, pulling an exercise band directly across from you towards your chest will target the middle trap, pulling an object slightly above you towards your chest will target the lower trap.  While pulling something directly down with your elbows wide will target your lats.   Be sure to change the angles of pull when doing back exercises to maintain proper balance.

2.    Avoid using your upper trapezius muscle excessively when performing pulling exercises.  If you are noticing yourself shrugging prior to doing simple tasks with your arms, your upper traps might be overdeveloped and are dominating shoulder movements. This subsequently makes your mid- and lower traps over stretched and weak. If you find yourself with sore upper traps for seemingly no reason, start paying attention to where they are sitting when you are doing daily tasks.  You might find they are overused and abnormally stretched above shoulders that are rolled forward more often than you think. 

3.    Stretch your chest as often as you strengthen your back. If the pec muscles are adaptively shortened from your shoulders being slouched, you will lose the ability to draw your shoulders back and your shoulder blades down and together. Remember, creating proper balance in muscle groups not only goes for strength, but for flexibility.  

4.    Strengthen your deep neck flexors.  Retract as many times as you can throughout the day. Remember, this keeps your head aligned over your shoulders and your eyes level.  Your head weighs 10 pounds.  Don’t slouch forward and make it feel like 60 pounds.  Your neck and back will suffer. 

5.    It is important to focus on endurance when training your back muscles.  This will assist you in maintaining your posture for longer periods.  Long duration, high-repetition exercise, with holds will promote greater endurance.   Additionally always look for ways to prolong a pose or slow your motions down in order to promote endurance in each muscle group. The core muscles will benefit from long endurance training and should be activated during any back exercise.  

6.    Change your habits.  Take standing breaks from sitting every 20 minutes, stand to watch the news, bring your phone up to you instead of looking down at it, get on a foam roll or exercise ball, lay on your stomach often…If you sit often, stand just as often.  If you are looking down often, make sure you are also doing things that force you to look up more often.  These habit changes can be very simple, not demanding, and still highly effective. 

I have designed numerous programs to educate and improve posture in all types of individuals.  As always, please don’t hesitate to contact me for your own personal postural workouts or a home physical therapy and personal health consultation.  Also, check out my most recent Humpday HIIT: “Back to Business” which targets these muscle groups specifically.

Keep going everyone,

Michael