Posture: How To Check, Assess And Fix

Hey EarthFIT fam! In this video, I’m gonna show you guys how to check your posture very simply upper body. So if you’re having a lot of neck pain, you’re feeling like you’re crunched forward. How can we check, assess, and actually better our posture? So I’m gonna walk you guys through a simple test that I put most new clients through, and this is called the wall test. So the first thing you need is a nice wall. It doesn’t have anything spectacular. All you gotta do is put your back against it. So first thing you go against the wall. Now you want to take your feet, make sure you’re about six inches to a foot away. Easiest thing you can do is just put your foot against the wall, do that right there and you’ll be in the right spot. So after that, we wanna go completely flat against the wall. 

You’ll notice that your back, it naturally curves in the lower back. You’re gonna want to pull that in. So your entire back is flat against the wall. What I actually have people do this, I’ll have something like a stick and I’ll slide it behind their back. So they have to keep that flat as they’re performing. So if you have a broomstick at home, you could do this as well. Or you could just simply even put like a towel behind your back, to perform the test.

So after we’re about six inches to a foot away, we have the rod, our back is nice and flat. What we’re gonna do is put the back of our head against the wall and then we’re gonna tuck our chin down. So this is gonna be challenging for many of you just to keep the stick flat or your back flat against the wall. You’ll notice it may rest against your glutes drop like I just let it drop. We do not want that to happen. Okay? But let’s say there’s no way Sam, that I can do it. Just drop the stick. Don’t force yourself out about it, but definitely continue to try to pull that core as you do this one, then we’re gonna look forward.

We’re going to pull our elbows into the wall and we’re gonna lift our wrists.

So what we’re checking for here is this area here, can we keep our core tight? And then is this area nice and mobile? A lot of times, life nowadays is set up to pull us forward, we’re on our cell phones a lot, watching this video. We’re on our computers… just life in general, when we’re driving the car is really pulling us forward. All that gravity’s pulling us forward and down. 

So we want things that are gonna.. daily practices that are gonna open this up. And this is one of them. So again, to recap, I’m gonna recap the test really quick, some points we’re gonna stand six inches to a foot away. We’re gonna have some type of stick – broom stick, whatever it is, towel against the wall. After we do that, we’re going to pull our core in flat. We’re gonna tuck our chin down. We’re gonna look straight forward, arms come up, chest level, a common error I see here is people raise their hands up here. It should be at chest level, right in line with the nipple or breast line and then you’re gonna pull your elbows into the wall and slowly rotate up. Now, how do you know if you have adequate posture or a pass or a fail on this test? 

If you can’t keep the stick flat, that would be considered a fail. If you can’t get your wrists all the way back to the wall that’d be considered a fail. Now, remember, I don’t even like using the term fail. It’s just a temporary position you’re in, continue to do this daily and you will see better results. Remember mobility is about frequency. The more you could do that, the more it’s gonna correct those imbalances we have. So that’s a quick fix for upper body posture. Do you have any questions on that, reach out to me specifically, or we’ll make more ‘how to’ videos on posture. If you like this video, give a thumbs up. If you loved it, gimme a heart and as always, stay strong.