A Step to Step Guide for Perfect Posture

Stand like a million bucks. You've tried before and it didn't feel right? The more wrong proper posture feels, the more you need it! Old habits die hard and trying to learn a new behavior is even harder. With Pilate's principles applied to daily living, at least you can be aware of your own imbalances.

Standing taller will ultimately relieve lower back pain, tight shoulders and a whole bunch of other misaligned type ailments. First things first, you have to find it.

Proper Standing Posture

1. Start by looking in a mirror head on with your feet hip width apart. Place one hand on the front of your stomach and the other hand on your sacrum (the bony landmark above your bum on you lower back. The area where the lower back is flat right above your tail bone). Start by leaning forward and back, shifting the weight between the balls of the feet and the heels. Now try to engage your hips, bringing them forward and back as you rock. This is called pelvic rocking. Make this movement smaller by starting to engage the core. Find a position that feels neutral for your body where your weight is on the balls of your feet and your pubic bone is pointed at the floor.
2. Now without moving your feet, feel like you are pulling your inner thighs together to get a little taller
3. Place both your hands on your lower abdominal (below your belly button) and exhale deeply. You should feel your abs pulling in and up. Do this a couple of times to get familiar with this feeling.
4. Place both your hands on your upper rib cage (right under your chest). As you inhale, feel your ribs expanding. As you exhale, feel how they come together. Now, as you inhale, see if you can keep them together by breathing through the sides of your body; in through the nose, out through the mouth.
5. Reach your fingers down by your sides, palms touching your outer thighs and let the shoulders draw back while reaching your armpits into your pockets. Now let's connect our pelvic floor. Think about the body as lengthening. Making the back nice and straight by tucking the tail just slightly if you have a larger arch in your lower back and drawing the abs up and in. Think about your pubic bone aiming directly at the ground. Think about each element we just worked and how they affect each other.
1. Start from our inner thighs, draw your abs in and up and allow this to close the rib cage.
2. Now, maintaining this posture, try to draw your shoulders down and back and lengthen through the crown of the head.
3. Notice your chin, is it in front of your collar bone? Draw it back and lengthen from the top of the head, the highest point on your head (the crown). Think back to when your mom made you walk around with a book on your head. In fact, just place a book there.

Notice if this position feels awkward. Notice your abdominal connection. This connection will remain the same in your seated posture (probably something we should talk about because odds are, if you are reading this you are probably sitting down somewhere looking at a computer. Let's fix your posture now:

Proper Seated Posture

1. First notice your sit bones. If you've ever bruised your bum, this is the area that you couldn't sit on for weeks. If you still don't know what I'm talking about, sit up for one second, and place your hands on your bottom (if you are in Starbucks or another public place, maybe excuse yourself to the bathroom for a moment). If you dig your fingers into each bum cheek, you will feel two bony things. These are your sit bones.
2. Now that you've discovered your sit bones, we can move on. Sit up nice and tall in your chair and rock forward in front of your sit bones and then rock backwards, behind your sit bones. Make this rocking gradually smaller until you are actually seated on your sit bones. Notice if this position has changed from your initial posture.
3. Just like we did in standing, it's now time to lift through your pelvic floor.
1. Firm the butt to grow even taller through the crown (highest point) of your head
2. Draw the lowest abs up and in and allow that to draw the rib cage down and together.
3. Press the shoulders down and back like your are reaching your arm-pits into your pockets while maintaining a wide collar bone and your abdominal connection.
4. Pull your head backwards so your chin is in line with your collar bone and you're lengthening through the crown of the head.

I hope this break down has helped to change your posture. Like I've said before, you can't truly practice Pilate's without having an out of body experience each time. A mirror helps, but it's not perfect. Do your best to implement these techniques into your daily life, but definitely continue to practice Pilate's regularly in order to see drastic improvements. Using Pilate's apparatuses will definitely help you see improvement quicker than mat classes, but anything you can do helps. Remember, keep drawing that chin back in line with your collar and you will notice a huge difference!