posture

The arm and shoulder of this African carpenter align with the back of his torso.

One of the most striking features of good posture is the position of the shoulders. The posture of this African carpenter shows how, with the shoulders well back, the arms align more with the back of the body than the front. The side of the chest and ribcage are clearly visible. Positioning the shoulders well brings you many benefits. It aligns your shoulder joint correctly, avoiding impingement, bursitis, arthritis, tendinitis, and general wear and tear. It improves circulation to your arms, as well as your breathing pattern. Optimal shoulder positioning improves athletic performance: throwing, punching, and swinging a racket or bat are all mechanically advantaged when your shoulders remain “home.” And last but not least, it helps prevent hunching your upper back and protruding your head forward.

If your shoulders have drifted forward over the years, a shoulder roll can ease your shoulders home into a healthy position. This maneuver gently realigns the many structures of the shoulder joint and immediately relieves stress and increases comfort. Punctuating your days with occasional shoulder rolls will gradually lengthen any tight, shortened muscles in the front of your chest and shoulders, giving you a wider, more open chest. 

Michelangelo’s ‘David’ shows the shoulders well behind a wide, open chest. Original image courtesy Igor Ferreira on Unsplash.

Your shoulders will be increasingly happy to settle back, returning nearer to where they were when you were a young child.

Children have naturally well-aligned shoulders.

If you don’t already know how to do a Gokhale Method shoulder roll, or would like to refresh your shoulder roll technique, this short video will show you how to gently roll each shoulder forward, up, and back.

The shoulder roll is so gentle you can repeat it whenever you need. (If you already have some soreness in your shoulder, then wait until it has recovered, or try mini shoulder rolls —  you do not want to cause pain.) However, the aim is not to be continually rolling your shoulders!

Here are my tips for making your shoulder roll last longer:

Tip 1: Once you have taken your shoulder forward, up, and then back, remember to release your arm down right there — you don’t want to just scoop your shoulder full circle! Check that you have fully relaxed the muscles on the top of your shoulder and neck. Feel the weight sinking down to your elbow. Expect this to both look and feel different from your old position — that’s progress!

Ratchet the shoulder soft tissue back in a similar way to a gear mechanism.

Tip 2: When sitting with your hands on your lap, place your hands close to your body and not close to your knees as this will tend to pull your shoulders forward again. Let your elbows drop straight down and be heavy. You can also hook your thumbs on your belt, pant rim, or pockets.

Your shoulders will be pulled forward if your hands slide too close to your knees.

Tip 3: Sit or stand up close to any task you may be doing. That may be typing, chopping vegetables, or working at a bench. This will make it easier to keep your shoulders rested back. You may be surprised how this simple step can help you break old habits of slouching the shoulders forward to reach things. 

Create new posture habits around daily tasks.

Tip 4: Notice how you go to move your coffee cup, pen or computer mouse —  are you automatically reaching your shoulder forward? With your shoulder back and relaxed after a shoulder roll, try extending your arm by opening up the angle of your elbow. 

Tip 5: Before driving, adjust your position to accommodate and keep your shoulder roll. See my blog post, How to Modify Your Car Seat for a Pain-Free Ride.

These five tips will help your arm, shoulder, and upper back muscles to work harmoniously and pain-free. I look forward to sharing further tips in Part 2 of this blog, and exploring when it is absolutely ok to pull your shoulders back!

Aarani silk from Tamil Nadu, Southern India. Aarani, a small town, weaves only silk sarees in 3-plied or 2-plied yarns, making it a lighter silk to wear. The first national flag of independent India hoisted at the Red Fort is rumored to have been woven in Aarani. Stacksitting helps showcase the saree in its full glory.

People who know me well have come to associate me with my posture work, my love for sarees — the traditional Indian unstitched garment — and my frequent travel owing to my management consulting work. This is an accurate perception: I love all these things.
 

Bhujodi cotton from Gujarat, Western India. Made in a small town near Bhuj, this Khadi fabric is fully made of organic cotton grown in the region. Originally a weaving technique for shawls, it has been adapted to sarees in recent decades. Once you know to tallstand, you can shift the position of your legs.

Chanderi Silkcotton from Madhya Pradesh, Central India. Woven in the town of Chanderi, these sarees were patronized by the royalty of the region. They are known for their sheer, gossamer texture. Shoulder rolls always help show off the neck.

I am proud of the work I do in posture. It is not an exaggeration when I say that learning the Gokhale Method from Esther in 2012, after suffering from back-related issues for over 16 years, has changed my life. Along with helping me regain my lost posture, it helped deepen my understanding of my body and gain better control over it, and enhanced my sense of confidence. Becoming a Gokhale Method teacher has helped me practice the method diligently in my own life and help others who want to learn it for themselves. A striking aspect of the Gokhale Method, and one which has impacted my outlook on many fronts, is the fact that one can marry tradition with modernity.

Many things in the modern world affect our posture. Poorly-designed furniture, changing movement habits, and sedentary work are often blamed for most musculoskeletal ailments. However, this is our reality, and one cannot give up everything and go back to what our ancestors did for their livelihoods. The Gokhale Method helps us adapt natural and traditional body wisdom to modern ways of life. My students are surprised when I tell them that they don’t have to give up anything at all, but rather can learn to reach into their ancestral past and bring some habits into the current. We help people transition from a paradigm of “don’t do this” to a world of “you could do it this way,” based on the learnings from our ancestors and people in cultures where this wisdom has been retained. “You could do it this way” is an empowering view.

Dholabedi from Odisha, Eastern India. Odisha can easily be the Burgundy of sarees, as every sub region has its own specialty. This one is known for the “dola,” the house like structures that are woven as an extra weft, representing the altar of Lord Jagannath of Puri. Pivot the neck and look tall.

Pochampally Ikat from Telengana, Southern India. Ikat is a technique that spans from Central America to Japan. The specialty is the patterns, which are decided while preparing the yarn and dyed accordingly with mathematical precision. The weaver then weaves the patterns on the loom with meticulous planning which always boggles my mind! A well-placed shoulder ensures the hands fall to the side.

My love for sarees comes from this same paradigm of marrying the traditional with the modern. This garment, which most women of my mother’s and previous generations wore all the time, was lost for many of my generation. Like many others, I adopted outfits from other cultures, as doing so was considered “modern.” Traditional wear was relegated to special events. My connection with my heritage was locked in a wardrobe — until I learned to look at the meaning behind these beautiful handwoven fabrics I had. As my interest grew, I discovered the uniqueness of each of these weaves and the stories they spun. One estimate says that there are over 450 varieties of hand-woven textiles in India, each telling a unique tale about the region, the terrain, and the way of living from which they arose. I know only a fraction of the tales these textiles have to tell.
 

Natural indigo linen with motifs in jamdani from West Bengal, Western India. Growing indigo changed the history of Bengal forever. It still remains a sought-after pigment for its depth and unique color. The 3x3x3 of tallstanding always helps.
 

Handpainted Kalamkari from Andhra, Southern India. Can you imagine painstakingly hand-painting every inch of 6 meters of cloth in natural colours? Mostly done by women craftsman, this is an exquisite art form. Don’t miss the stacksitting!
 

Kanjeevaram silk from Tamil Nadu, Southern India. The “Queen of silks” woven in the town of Kanjeevaram, this weave represents true commerce with mulberry silk yarn from Mysore and gold thread from Surat in Gujarat. The body and the border are woven separately and integrated with the special technique of “korvai,” requiring two people to work together simultaneously. Once you learn to stacksit, you can sit on any surface with ease.

Wearing these sarees has helped me understand my own heritage a little better. And they helped me realize I do not have to give up tradition in order to exist in the modern world. Instead, I can adapt tradition to flow in ways that feel contemporary. That means, for example, I drape the saree differently depending on context. I experiment with mixing-and-matching, bringing elements from my Western wardrobe into play with elements from my Indian wardrobe. I wear the saree short or long, depending on what the fabric feels like. I adapt different regional draping styles that suit the occasion — there are over 200 documented regional styles in India alone! I wear it at home, out at work, and overseas when I travel. It is a beautiful experience that helps me come home to myself.

Karvati Kinar from Maharashtra, Western India. From the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, known for its arid terrain. This saree is mostly woven in a rough silk and has unique “mountain” motifs in the border. An anteverted pelvis helps us stand restfully.

Pochampally silk from Telengana, Southern India. Just look at the modernity in the ikat motifs! Who would imagine that the weavers have never left their villages, yet can create such marvelous designs and such a sophisticated color palette? Once you learn tallstanding, you don’t need high heels!

Sometimes it seems that moving with the times means giving up things from the past. But if we look carefully, the present is actually interwoven with the essence of the past. They are not necessarily at odds. Uncovering the meaning of the past and blending it with the needs of the present creates gracefulness. Beauty lies in this harmony. The saree and the Gokhale Method: both are traditional, elegant tools to achieve harmonious results, blending past and present.
 

Sungudi from Tamil Nadu, Southern India. A tie-and-dye technique from Madurai, this has an interesting history of internal migration. Settlers from Gujarat in the west of India who came to this region brought this art form along with them in the 16th century. Have we said enough about tallstanding?
 

Ajrakh handblock-printed saree from Gujarat, Western India. This saree demonstrates a unique block-printing technique that involves 14 different steps and has a history spanning centuries. Even today, many motifs exhibit Persian influence. Does this have a Greco-Roman feel in the draping and the posture?
 

Jainsem from Meghalaya, North-East India. A two-piece textile that is worn as a layered outfit by the Khasi tribe in this region’s pristine, hilly terrain. Traditional clothing was and is designed for practical, everyday movements with ease.
 

Boro from Assam, North-East India. A beautiful cotton with motifs made from extra weft, and which has a unique feature: the border is woven separately and then stitched on top. Creativity has so many different expressions!
 

Sangeeta Sundaram is a qualified Gokhale Method Teacher based in Mumbai, India.

Note the forward head and neck placement of both these High Street pedestrians. This usually results from tucking the pelvis (see the man (right)), but can also become a habit independent of pelvic position (see woman (left)).

Here our Bristol teacher Clare Chapman has digitally edited the photo to demonstrate how different healthier posture can look. Compare these subjects’ edited neck placement and spinal curvature with that in the original picture.

Metaphors can be powerful tools for learning new kinesthetic pathways. A metaphor packages a picture (which, we all know, can be worth 1000 words!) as well as some helpful verbiage. The Gokhale Method uses metaphors liberally, and it often takes a metaphor to help a student understand, execute, and remember a desired action.

A new metaphor for cueing the neck
Our Bristol teacher Clare Chapman recently introduced a useful metaphor to direct students in improving their neck architecture. Visualize the head as a car that is parked in the driveway (protruded forward) or even out on the street (very protruded forward). Now, while keeping the neck long, back your “car” into its “garage.” That is, you want to glide your head gently and smoothly back into its place. 

This seated Bamana male figure from Mali shows an ideal neck alignment.

I've begun using this metaphor in my teaching and see students smiling — perhaps because it's funny to think of the head as a car parked out in the driveway or on the street, or because backing a car into a garage is a comfortingly familiar process, or perhaps because it's pleasant to understand what's being taught! Whatever the reason, I see my students learning faster and better.

My husband, Brian, with an elephant in Thailand. This particular elephant’s primary job was transporting logs as well as people in the forest. There are not enough tourists in this area to have tourism be the elephants' main activity. The Karen tribal people have a very intimate (and seemingly joyous) relationship with their elephants, riding them bare-backed, swimming with them, and also using them in a similar way to how draft horses might be used.

Brian enjoying a moment with the family cats (not pictured).

It's very striking how an apt metaphor can change the learning curve dramatically. Does this metaphor work for you? Are there other metaphors that help you align your neck?

This is the second post in our multi-part series on floor sitting. For Part 1 on floor sitting, click here.

Why squat? Squatting isn’t something we do much in industrialized societies beyond childhood, but if you can do it healthfully, it is an eminently practical posture for resting the body while keeping the backside elevated off the ground and the clothing clean, as this woman from Orissa demonstrates.

This woman from Orissa demonstrates a healthy, full squat with foot arches intact and a long, straight spine.

It is also the posture used for toilet activities in places with floor toilets, a trend which has recently made its way to the industrialized realm in the form of popular footstools such as the Squatty Potty. If you have ever gone camping in a place without Port-A-Potties, you have had good occasion to squat!

Using a simple footstool to sit on a toilet, supported with a straight back.

And women worldwide, especially in less-industrialized societies, have long used squatting during childbirth. Talk about ancestral posture.

Like mother, like child.

Women squatting in a tribal market in Orissa to sell vegetables. This is a very comfortable, sustainable posture they have grown up with.

The problem
Most people’s hip, knee, and ankle joints do not bend enough to allow the back to remain straight and the arches in the feet to remain intact.

People in modern societies usually don’t have the hip/knee/ankle structure to do a full squat without rounding the back and compromising the feet.

The fix
Raise the heels or resort to a partial squat or B squat (one heel raised, the other down). Do not settle down all the way down on your haunches.

For most people, squatting with raised heels makes it possible to have a straight back.

A partial squat or B squat, with one foot on the ground (not visible) and the other foot with the heel raised. This facilitates a healthy, straight back posture.

In conclusion, for modern urban people to derive the benefits but avoid the pitfalls of squatting, consider raising your heels, or doing a “B squat” or partial squat. For going to the toilet, a Squatty Potty or low foot bench is useful. We recommend on working on your calf and quad flexibility to get low to the ground towards a squat, but do not insist on a full squat because it will likely involve some unhealthy compensations. And enjoy people watching in cultures where squatting is part of daily living.  Every culture has its facilities and limitations and it’s fun that we’re all different!

This woman squats for hours to add slip onto her pots. Orissa, India.

One regular challenge you are likely to face in your posture journey is the battle against the oversized sofa. Here are some tips to help you maintain good form and stay pain-free when relaxing on a sofa.

Want to avoid the habitual curled, tucked position that most couches seem to encourage? Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash.

Stretchsitting

Your first line of defense against a deep, soft couch should be stretchsitting. This will make your seated time therapeutic as well as relaxing. Some couches, made of fabric with some degree of friction and having seats that aren’t too deep, may not be difficult to stretchsit on. If you’re lucky, you can simply hook yourself up against the back of the sofa. However, many couches are too deep to allow you to get your bottom up against the backrest while keeping your legs bent and feet on the ground. In this case, you will need to fill in the space behind your back with one or more pillows or cushions. For very soft pillows, you can squish them down behind you until they are compressed enough to provide some resistance to lengthen your back against. If the couch or the cushion you use behind your back is made of a slippery material, such as leather, and provides no friction for hooking your back, add a Stretchsit® cushion behind you. Even without anchoring the Stretchsit cushion, the rubber nubs will allow you to get a little length in your spine. If the back of the couch tilts you significantly backward and there is no support behind your head, it may be a strain to support your head and neck. You may need to build up some extra padding toward your shoulder blades so your spine is closer to vertical. If the seat angles back or is soft enough to rotate your legs inward, you may also want another cushion beneath your pelvis.

You don’t need to get a strong stretch while lounging on the sofa, the way you might want to while working at a desk. Even a subtle lengthening that prevents you from sinking into the couch and “melting,” as many of us tend to do, will be beneficial.

Place as many cushions behind your back as you need to prevent a rounded spine and create a firm enough surface to stretchsit against. Photo by Jacalyn Beales on Unsplash.

Stacksit on the edge

If you find it challenging to stretchsit on your couch, perhaps because the couch sucks you in and you can’t find cushions that give you firm support to stretch against, try perching on the edge of the couch and stacksitting instead. Although slightly less relaxing and somewhat more formal, stacksitting is an option on almost any sofa or surface. Simply scoot to the edge of the couch, make sure to antevert your pelvis, and find that perfectly balanced stack! Anchor your ribs as necessary to prevent a sway, and roll your shoulders back.

The man on the right has his bottom behind him and maintains an elongated spine while sitting on the front edge of the sofa. Photo by Aaron Thomas on Unsplash.

If you find your knees are up rather high and causing an uncomfortable stretch, you can extend them in front of you, or cross them at the ankles and let your knees roll open to each side. Crossing the legs at the ankle and letting the knees fall open is an elegant, comfortable way to slant the thighs downward and promote pelvic anteversion, rather than having the knees up above the hip joint. The softer the couch and the more the seat tilts back, the closer to the edge you will want to be. In the end, you may end up with only an inch or two of support against the very backs of your thighs. To get a little extra length in your spine while stacksitting, push your elbows against your knees to elongate your back.

This man lengthens his spine by pressing with his elbows against his thighs. Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash.

Reclining

Another great way to enjoy your couch time is to use the full length of the couch (if you don’t have to share) and recline up against an armrest. On most couches, however, the armrest creates too vertical of a support to lay directly against, and will round your spine.

Without filling in the corner of the couch with cushions, the armrest will force you to round your spine and provide little support. Photo from startupstockphotos.com.

Instead, you will need to create a gentle slope of cushions, filling in the corner of the couch and the space underneath your J-spine. This will create a nice soft spot for you to recline halfway on. To get the shape right, make sure there is a sufficient ledge to allow your bottom behind you, preserving the J, and that the slope you create supports your shoulders as well as your head so you aren’t rounded with your head pushed too far forward by the armrest.

In the classic painting (The Venus of Urbino, by Titian), Venus has enough cushions beneath her to maintain a neutral, supported spine, and could even relax her head back against the pillow. Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

You can also recline on your side, as long as you have enough support under your waist, shoulder, and head to keep your spine straight and relaxed.

What's your favorite lounge position on couches? Let us know in the comments!

As winter approaches and the weather cools, we all have one thing on our minds: staying warm! One major benefit of learning the Gokhale Method (and good posture in general) is improved circulation. We’ve often heard from students about their warmer hands and feet, and we’ve even heard from people who have significantly reduced their heating bill now that their extremities aren’t always freezing! When you align your body well, your blood flows unimpeded throughout the body, passing nutrients to cells and maintaining homeostatic processes, like regulating temperature, glucose, and sodium levels. Imbalances in this process can lead to illness and prevent healing.

Here are three simple ways to immediately improve your circulation:

1. The shoulder roll

Situate your shoulders in a relaxed and open position to ensure healthy circulation to and from your arms. This will repair damaged tissues and prevent future ailments, such as carpal tunnel and repetitive stress syndrome.

Activities like typing, writing, texting, and playing an instrument increase your hands’ demand for blood, so it is important to restore normal architecture around the axillary artery that runs under your pectoral region, the major thoroughfare for circulation to and from your arms.

To roll your shoulders back:

1. Hunch one shoulder forward, causing it to round slightly.

2. Lift the shoulder up toward your ear.

3. Roll the shoulder far back, and bring the elbow behind your hips or your body’s midpoint, toward the spine, rather than letting it hang forward of the hips.

4. Gently slide the shoulder blade down along your spine.

5. Repeat with the other side.

Watch this Gokhale Moments video for a quick demonstration of the shoulder roll technique.

2. Stand with unlocked legs

When you stand, make sure the groin areas (the two creases at the junction of the torso with the legs) are soft and not locked. The softness there should feel similar to the crease of an unlocked elbow. This position allows ample room for the femoral artery and vein, makes standing more comfortable, and allows you to exercise longer without pain or injury. Healthy blood flow to your legs and feet heals little injuries fast and can prevent cold feet, varicose veins, blood clots, and Raynaud’s syndrome.

To soften the groin area:

1. While standing, sink your body downward, bending equally at the knees and hip joints, but keeping your back straight (think of preparing to receive a serve in tennis, or of bending to sit on the toilet). Your pelvis should “nest” between your legs.    

2. Leaving your weight primarily on your heels, slowly straighten just short of locking the groin (and the knees).

3. Check the groin crease for softness by placing your fingers where the top of the legs hinge at the hip. You should feel some “give” in the soft tissue before feeling bone.

3. Stacksit

Stacking your spine on an anteverted pelvis while sitting provides you with a healthy way to relax at your desk, on public transit, or at the dining table. Your spine stacks naturally because of the architecture of the bones, but even a small hunch or pelvic tuck can unbalance a stacked spine.

Anterverted pelvis versus tucked pelvis

Because of this, many of us sit with tensed muscles, expending a lot more energy to sit less comfortably. When you stacksit, your back muscles relax, facilitating a healthy breathing pattern that moves the back with every breath. This movement provides a constant massage around your spine, optimizing circulation around the spine and keeping your tissues healthy.

To stacksit:

1. Form a wedge by folding a blanket or towel, or even a sweatshirt, so that one end of the folded material is thicker than the other end.

2. Place the wedge on a chair, with the higher side to the back of the chair. Alternatively, you can sit on the edge of the chair.

3. Sit on the wedge or edge of the chair. Your pelvis should tip forward—you may need to extend your legs farther outward or tuck your feet under the chair to allow your thighs to angle toward the ground as well.

4. Feel the way your spine stacks naturally and notice the easy expansion of your lungs with each breath. (If your pelvis still wants to roll into a tucked position when you try to relax, increase the anteverted tilt of your pelvis by making the wedge beneath you steeper.)

Once you are stacked, check that you do not have a sway (or arch) in your lower back. You can check this by feeling your spinal groove with your fingertips. A shallow groove that remains even all the way up your back is good; a deep groove in your lower back means you are swaying. To fix, place your fingers gently on the bottom edges of your rib cage, several inches above your belly button. If you can feel the edge of your rib cage through the flesh of your torso, use your hands to tuck your rib cage down and in, which will straighten out the spine. You can also remove a curve from your back by lengthening the torso as if you want to touch the crown of your head to the ceiling (a weight on the head is an excellent way to practice this).

Now feel your spine again to check that you have a shallow, even groove; above your sacrum, it should feel straight, rather than gently curving. You can practice this position with the aid of a mirror, or a partner who can give you feedback on your position, until you have a good sense for what a straight spine and a swayed spine feel like.

Check out this video on stacksitting to see the technique in action.

If you have a story about improving your circulation or temperature after correcting your posture, please share in the comments below!

Note: Sending thanks to Clare Chapman, Gokhale Method teacher in Bristol, England, who helped research and write this blog post.

In today’s hi-tech world, people are quick to turn to technology, wearables, and apps to help fix their back pain—and yes, they are right to treat poor posture as the major culprit! But modern ideas about good posture are part of the problem—so do wearable devices actually improve on the bad habits we’ve been taught since we were children?

Our Gokhale Method teachers are sometimes asked by their students about various posture wearables, especially the new generation of bio-feedback sensors. Do wearables really help people get comfortable and become pain-free? Have you tried using one? Do you recommend trying any?

As you can imagine, in order to design a product that encourages good posture, you need to understand the basics of good posture first. Even at this first step, most of these products fail, either by misunderstanding what constitutes good posture, or by leaving it up to the consumer to understand and find good posture. This is why wearables cannot be standalone solutions, but must accompany a good posture education—the kind that can only be achieved from hands-on training that works with you as an individual with a unique starting point, and teaches you how to reposition your body and find healthy posture.

Let’s take a step back from modern ideas of posture and look to ancient models, before industrialization and various fashions pushed us away from healthy habits.

We are going to take a look at some of the wearable products which are intended, designed, and marketed to correct posture, and exclude any medical devices from this analysis. These posture wearables most often target slumpy shoulders and slouchy spines. Some work through physically shaping and restraining your body, for example with straps that pull your shoulders back. Some work through haptic feedback, for example buzzing whenever your start to slouch.

SHAPING DEVICES

Let’s start with the simplest devices, the braces and correctors which work rather like corsets in that they physically mold and hold you in a different position. There are three main problems that we see with shaping devices:

1. encouraging a poor ideal, such as an S-spine or a tucked pelvis

2. not teaching to any ideal, but pulling on the body and leaving the user to try and guess how to rearrange their body with this new limitation

3. targeting just one area instead of working holistically (usually while marketing that the device will fix all your postural pain)

With the first problem, you would likely be trading one unhealthy position for another, with a whole new set of pains.

In the case of the second, if a device simply prevents a negative posture like lumbar curve or slumped shoulders, it could actually be beneficial to someone who understands how to achieve good posture but hasn’t solidified their new habits yet; with a good posture education, the best use of the device is as a secondary aid.

With number three, it’s important to remember that truly good posture requires participation of the pelvis, spine, shoulders, head, ribs, knees, and feet! There is no practical device that can nudge all of these different regions into the right alignment.

CerebralBody Premium Comfortable Adjustable Posture Corrector

In this first example we see both a positioning back of the shoulders and flattening of the upper back. However, the model sways at her waist, bringing compression to the mid back. It is unclear whether the shape of the device encourages an S-spine or if it simply does not prevent it; but nowhere do we see an ideal J-spine.

Pelham and Strutt Postural Shapewear

In addition to physical braces there is Shapewear, which again molds the body but acts directly against the skin using sculpting, elasticated fabrics. Again, these clothing items are designed to reinforce the S-shaped spine. The upper lumbar curve is mistakenly identified as the place where you want to have the most curve, rather than at L5/S1.

Compare the difference between an S-spine and J-spine:

S-shaped spine                      J-shaped spine

Notice that the S-shaped spine has much deeper waist, upper back and neck curves, resulting in more pressure on the front or back of the discs, over-tight or lax muscles, and compression on nerves. The J-shaped spine, by contrast, allows the spine to lengthen and stack without these physical stresses.

These two products serve as a good representation for the range of shaping devices, most of which are variations on shoulder/back restraints, and are almost exclusively aimed at pulling the shoulders back at the expense of a sway in the lumbar spine, perpetuating the common S-spine model that actually causes harmful compression of the discs.

FEEDBACK DEVICES

So are the new generation of Biofeedback Devices doing any better? They certainly use more varied and sophisticated technologically, containing sensors that read our position and let us know (usually with a beep or vibration) when our posture is off track so that we can correct it. An important step forward with this innovation is that it actually aims to train, not merely restrain the body, so the habits you develop last even after you take the device off.

Feedback devices suffer from similar problems as shaping devices:

1. The device is often not aimed to a good postural model. If you are encouraged to stick a sensor on your lumbar spine that is only happy when you are swaying, or to place a sensor in a place that isn’t actually effective for picking up on bad habits, then there is no way at all users can benefit.

2. Many of these feedback devices require the user to set their own ‘ideal’ from which the device will judge deviation. Yet if you do not know how to comfortably sit or stand in the first place, the ideal you set will likely be unnatural and harmful, achieved with tense muscles and a poorly stacked skeleton. In this case, your device will be pestering you to constantly strain your body in this unnatural position, and reinforcing new bad habits. To get good results, you need to already have a thorough understanding of good posture.
   
   Note that these products do have the benefit of some flexibility in how you use them and in setting and updating your ideal. If you have had posture training and know how to find a healthy position, you could indeed use a buzzer as a trainer. We are all guilty of slipping into old habits and positions, and having a wearable that notifies you when you start to backslide can be a good way to build up your stamina and ingrain your new healthy habits.

3. As with shaping products, feedback wearables can only address one region at a time. So unless you plan to cover yourself in small vibrating devices, you must focus on one problem area. If you plan to use one of these devices as a training tool, this could be a benefit to target a region you struggle with, like slumping shoulders.

Ergo Posture Transformer

The Ergo Posture Transformer promises ‘Perfect Posture Instantly’, and combines physical molding of the body with biofeedback that mysteriously ‘triggers an automatic reflex in your thoracic vertebrae.’ It is one of many posture products looking for crowdfunding to bring it to market, and certainly includes a host of more advanced features by virtue of its comprehensive app. The app offers notifications, videos and a rather gung-ho stretch routine, which includes rolling the head (ouch!) and bending with a rounded spine (not recommended).

Its strong elastic construction aims to deliver:

• Head balanced over shoulders

• Shoulders back and down

• Chest expanded

• Abdominals engaged

This points all sound good, yet the end result, or ‘ideal’ shown on the website, is strangely stiff and tense:

If you have taken the Gokhale Method Foundations Course or read Esther’s book, 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back, you will know the difference between forced sitting up, and relaxed sitting well. You will also know that this man’s back and neck tension is due to sitting upright (trying to stack his spine) with a tucked pelvis, made worse by the extreme negative slant of his chair seat— an angle we do not recommend for stacksitting! This means his back muscles are tense trying to maintain an upright position.

Upright Pro/Upright Go

Upright Pro is an attractively designed unit that adheres to the skin using disposable pads with hypoallergenic adhesive on one side, velcro with the device on the other side. It is placed along the spine either at waist height to detect rounding of the mid lumbar vertebrae when you slump, or between your shoulder blades to detect rounding of the thoracic area. It alerts you to posture that deviates from your set ideal by vibrating; wearers are sensibly advised to build up their practice gradually, starting with 5 minutes a day.

This version of upright includes a severe sway and forward-neck—not at all an example of good posture!

You can take a look at the Upright Pro in action on YouTube. Unfortunately, in the videos you will see the models alternating between the classic relaxed/slumped and upright/tense sitting positions, each of which over time do different kinds of damage.

The UpRight Go, a new product from the same company as Upright Pro, is designed to be worn just on the upper back and is marketed as ‘the effortless way to correct your ‘screen-slouch’.’ As you can see from the more lifted front ribs and increased rucking on the back of the model’s top, this uprightness is still being obtained from a sway and tension in the back.

We agree that slumped sitting is not good for the spine, but when calibrating their ideal position for these two devices, people will almost inevitably train themselves to arch and tense if they have no understanding of the natural J-spine. Warning users not to hyperextend is good advice, but remains wishful thinking without pelvic anteversion. It takes learning the Gokhale Method to systematically address all the underlying causes of problematic sitting—the wrong pelvic position, the S-shaped spine ideal, badly designed furniture, poor role models, tight and weak muscles etc. With that important proviso, in-app support is comprehensive, with features such as a sensitivity slider and re-calibration options, and its dashboard also takes you to daily goals, tracks progress, and offers a library of help tutorials.

Lumo Lift

The Lumo Lift is a small, discrete unit. Little more than a chip, this one attaches via a magnet near to your collarbone on your top or lapel. It vibrates when you slouch to remind you to sit tall and stand straight and its motion sensors track your posture and activity levels throughout the day for progress tracking via the app.

Again, if you set your target posture wrong, or crucially, don’t know how to get straight without tension, you will train yourself into further bad habits.

One problem with all devices that buzz every time the spine deviates from vertical is that it may dissuade people from hip-hinging correctly. Rather than upset the sensor, people may be tempted to crane the head forward—or to bend with the knees and keep the back upright. If a sensor were to allow for hip-hinging but alert you when you sway or round your back, this could be really useful.

CONCLUSION

These devices demonstrate why piecemeal solutions that are not grounded in solid posture research and years of teaching experience, do not work well—you could be buying yourself a whole lot of new back trouble if you don’t know solid technique before using them. Just because you can force your shoulders back and tighten the slouch from your spine doesn’t mean you are actually repositioning your body to achieve healthy posture—the missing ingredient in all these devices so far.

To relieve our back pain and the epidemic of related health problems, we must rediscover our ancient body wisdom and educate ourselves on how to emulate the posture of peoples and ancestors who don’t have back pain. Here is the gold standard that will save us from replacing one st of problems with another. After getting a thorough posture education and training, however, some of these devices could be used as helpful training tools; we also see the potential for more advanced devices to deliver useful data that can point us to problem areas or problematic activities we haven’t been able to spot on our own.

The Gokhale Institute is dedicated to embracing new ways of supporting our students to relearn their primal, pain-free posture, and our approach has always combined the best of ‘high tech’ with ‘high touch’. These are exciting times and our culture is only just beginning to harness the possibilities of wearable technology and biofeedback devices. So, we would love to hear about any posture devices you have tried. What helped, what didn’t? We invite you to post below.

1. Take frequent breaks to stand up and stretch

2. Sit up tall

3. Stretch out on your side

4. Or your back

5. Take time to play

6. And exercise!

7. Bend at the hips

8. You can sleep on pillows

9. Or hard surfaces!

10. Great strength requires great rest

11. Sometimes it’s good to push your limits of strength,

movement,

and patience and persistence

12. Surround yourself with loved ones

13. And lastly, enjoy yourself!