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  • What's up, guys?

  • Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.com.

  • We're talking all about posture today and if there was a representation of poor posture,

  • it was this young man right here, Jesse.

  • And I know we've been infatuated with the muscle gains that he's been making, but I

  • can tell you this: those muscle gains would actually be impossible had he not first fixed

  • his posture.

  • For anyone that's followed this channel for any length of time, I realized that as a physical

  • therapist I have to prioritize posture, especially when we start attacking the strength training

  • program because I don’t think you can physically put yourself in position to be as strong as

  • possible if you don’t first fix your posture.

  • So we had to do that with Jesse.

  • What did we do?

  • Turn around and show them what you look like, because you kind of look exactly like I just

  • did.

  • You kind of came to me looking like this.

  • If you don’t believe me, you can look at Jesse's picture over here for verification

  • that, yes, that's actually how he looked when he started training.

  • But knowing that we can't throw him under the bar that way, because we're asking for

  • problems, we had to address one by one, starting right here.

  • The upper back.

  • The thoracic spine being rounded, kyphotic.

  • It's not a good position.

  • You actually can't lift your arm over your head fully if you're in this position.

  • With that is a second problem: the rounded shoulders that come with that.

  • Again, you're begging for shoulder pain if you don’t fix this.

  • As a compensation for this posture here, if you want to look straight aheadbecause

  • it's going to bring everything down.

  • If your body is going this way, your head is going to follow.

  • As a compensation for that we know we've got to look straight ahead.

  • So what do we do?

  • We peek up.

  • That's called nerd neck, right there.

  • Jesse appropriately developed it because he's a nerd.

  • Even because of all his Star Wars infatuation I call him that, but beyond that we have other

  • reasons.

  • He needs to fix this though.

  • And so do you.

  • Really, a little bit uncharacteristically, Jesse's got a hell of a case of anterior pelvic

  • tilt.

  • Meaning, he gets that swoop in the low back.

  • We actually fixed that, and addressed that in an entire video that you need to watch

  • if you have that problem.

  • I'm going to show you what it looks like over here, and link it for you at the end of this

  • video.

  • But here's what most of us have.

  • Step aside, Jess.

  • Because of all this roundedness, what happens in the spinebecause it's one connected

  • unitis we get this posterior pelvic tilt.

  • This tucking under.

  • This ass-not, as we call it.

  • So basically, we have four main issues that we have to address and we're going to do that

  • here, one by one.

  • Remember, the one thingif you're short on timethat's going to be the most impactful

  • for you, we string them all together, and I promise you, you're going to start to see

  • better results with your posture.

  • Let's first attack that rounded upper back.

  • The thoracic kyphosis.

  • Actually, a fun one to do because all it takes is a broomstick.

  • Jesse's got a metal bar here.

  • You lay face down on the floor like that, you put your arms nice, and wide on the bar,

  • and then Jesse's going to roll in this direction here.

  • When he does, he's actually trying to get extension through his thoracic spine here,

  • and rotation because we like to pair rotation and extension together because the spine works

  • that way.

  • We always have to respect the rotational plane whenever we do something because that's how

  • we operate.

  • So he goes back in this direction.

  • The bar is actually blocking him by staying in contact with the floor, and he's just rolling

  • it.

  • Now he comes back out, and he's going to go back the other way.

  • He plants down the right side with the bar, and he rolls back in that direction, opening

  • up thoracic extension, and rotation, hanging out at the end for just a couple of seconds

  • in each direction.

  • Do five, or six of these in each direction, and move on to hit those rounded shoulders

  • next.

  • All right, guys.

  • Now we have to go after those rounded shoulders.

  • The first thing you should know is, a lot of times the rounded shoulders are a consequence

  • of that rounded thoracic spine because once that starts it's hard to fight gravity, and

  • everything else starts to get rounded around with it.

  • But with that comes adaptive shortening because of the muscles in the chest, and we want to

  • make sure that we're not just focused on that.

  • Guys, I talk about it all the time.

  • You'd better start learning to pull, pull, pull.

  • And in this case we want to do face pulls, and we want to do them often.

  • So a face pull is going to actually help in developing the muscles on the backside here

  • to counteract all that adaptive shortening on the front.

  • You can see when Jesse does this now, he's basically working on external rotation as

  • well.

  • So as he gets back he's trying to bring his thumbs back, behind his body this way, and

  • at the same time working the posterior deltoids, and at the same time working the rhomboids,

  • and the muscles here in the upper back.

  • And he's holding it.

  • It's not about getting here and trying to get out of here as fast as possible.

  • It's about getting here and staying here, and then reversing it.

  • so you go here for quality reps.

  • I'd rather see him go 10 sets of 1 quality rep at a time, as opposed to doing one set

  • of 10.

  • At least the mentality when you approach this exercise.

  • So the face pull.

  • Out, keep these arms as wide as you can.

  • Work on externally rotating them.

  • Trying to pull and push the thumbs back in this direction, and get one quality rep at

  • a time.

  • Now we have to work on that nerd neck, okay?

  • In order to do that you have to realize that because of everything else that's been going

  • on, the chain reaction now usually causes a weakness in the deep neck flexors here,

  • in the front of your neck.

  • So you don’t just want to do the neck flexion resisted exercises with a plate.

  • You also want to make sure that you're tucking your chin back so you can really activate

  • the deep neck flexors.

  • So what you do is take a tennis ball like this, and Jesse's going to tuck it right here,

  • between his sternum and his chin.

  • Just like that, to engage.

  • It forces him to have to hold his neck back.

  • He takes a 10lb plate, or a 5lb plate, wrapped in a t-shirt, or a towel.

  • He goes down just enough to be in slight extension, and he goes back up, and flexes into neutral.

  • But the whole time he's engaging those deep neck flexors by keeping that tennis ball between

  • his sternum, and his chin, and then going through this really small movement here.

  • Again, quality repetitions.

  • When you talk about fixing posture it's not about trying to rack up set, after set, after

  • set.

  • It's only about racking up quality rep, and quality rep, and quality rep.

  • One at a time.

  • That's what matters the most.

  • Okay, lastly we have to attack that pelvis.

  • The pelvis is really the base of all the stuff that's going on here because it's literally

  • supporting all this bad shit that's happening up top.

  • For Jesse, we talked about how he's an anterior pelvic tilt.

  • But for most of us, what happens when all this stuff is rounding forward is it gets

  • tucked underneath.

  • Why is that?

  • The hamstrings get short, and tight, and they start pulling this down, and under.

  • As I said before, the ass-not posture.

  • It's getting rid of your ass.

  • You don’t really have a good looking ass in this position here because it's sinking

  • under, and disappearing.

  • So if I grab the camera here, I can actually show you how we can fix this.

  • If I get right here with Jesse I can tell "Hey, look.

  • Put your foot up on something you can dorsal flex your foot."

  • Pointing it toward your head.

  • From there, make sure your knee is straight because we want to try and flex this hamstring

  • out.

  • In order to stretch the hamstring out we have to get into that anterior pelvic tilt.

  • Now, for Jesse that's easy.

  • Go back into that posterior tilt.

  • Most of us are going to start like that.

  • That's what is getting us into trouble in the first place.

  • But we really try to force our butt out as far as we can.

  • Then from there, all we have to do is maintain this anterior pelvic tilt, we reach forward

  • with our arms and reach in this direction as much as possible.

  • Over here, just like this, he's reaching out toward me.

  • That's the direction, but keeping all that the way it was.

  • If you see the hamstring, he's not bending a lot at the waist.

  • There's not a lot of forward bend here at the waist, but because he has himself in anterior

  • tilt, that hamstring is really getting lengthened here.

  • That's what you want to do.

  • You want to make sure, again, you do this on both sides, and you do it for about 45

  • seconds at a time.

  • Nice, high quality stretching.

  • If you do that I promise you guys, you're going to feel this, obviously, right away,

  • but if you work on all four of these things together you fix the pelvis, you work on the

  • mid back, you work on those shoulders, the neck, hopefully, will work itself out.

  • But as you increase the deep neck flexor strength as well, that's all going to help, too.

  • So there you have it, guys.

  • There is your posture plan of attack.

  • Remember, as I said, it didn't take this guy one day to get this way, and I'm sure it didn't

  • take you that long either.

  • So if you're going to make these changes they can happen.

  • You just have to be committed to making the changes.

  • If you're looking for more in depth breakdowns of the individual conditions from the rounded

  • shoulders, to the neck, to having the anterior pelvic tilt, in Jesse's case; whatever it

  • might be, we've made videos for all those, and I'll make sure I link them in the description

  • below.

  • But I'm telling you: a little bit goes a long way.

  • A little bit in high quality goes the longest way.

  • So do these things I'm showing you here today and I promise you're going to start seeing

  • results very, very quickly.

  • Again, you can feel them instantly.

  • You can start to see them adapt, and become permanent over time.

  • Now, if you're looking for a program that puts the science into everything we do, that's

  • all in our ATHLEANX program.

  • As a physical therapist I lay it all out for you step by step in every, single workout

  • we do.

  • That's what Jesse's been doing as well.

  • You can get that over at ATHLEANX.com.

  • In the meantime, if you've found the video helpful leave your comments and thumbs up

  • below.

  • Let me know what else you want me to cover and I'll do my best to do that for you in

  • the days, and weeks ahead.

  • See you.

What's up, guys?

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