This week we had a request from Dubbo to talk about posture and where your shoulders should be.  So here we go…

Perfect physie posture requires thinking about a lot of different parts of the body. Starting from the ground up, place your feet at attention in a small V with the weight on the balls of your feet. Lift the knees and activate your quads so you are ready for any movement. Tuck the tail under and pull your naval back towards your spine. Now we are half way… and here comes the tricky part.

Expand your chest so that you can feel all your ribs separating and slide your hands as far down your legs as you can (hands are just pulled back a little from the sides of the legs). Lift through the crown of the head to elongate your neck and tilt the face slightly upwards. There you have it! Lots to remember. And you are ready to move…

So what about the shoulders? Where should they be? If you’ve done all of the above, your shoulders will be in the right place – you will achieve this by inflating the chest and reaching down with your hands – so don’t even think about them. Sometimes trying to push your shoulders down or backwards can in fact create posture problems.

Picture 1 is the perfect posture for standing at attention.

If you still have trouble with your shoulders, try locking fingers behind your back and pulling your hands down (picture 2), then release the hands, place them on your legs and your shoulders should be in the right place. Or you can also do this from the heave position (picture 3), or even from drag position (picture 4).

You can see in Picture 4 how the chest is expanded but the back is not arched. Having a strong core and keeping your back in the “neutral spine” position (not arched) is really key to having great posture, not just for physie, but for life!