Here are four quick tips on improve posture which anyone can benefit from. Remember, move better, feel better, perform better. Take the time to take care of yourself.

1. 2:1 Push:Pull Ratio

All you have to do is take a walk through the mall or the grocery store and you’ll notice the incredible amount of people walking around with anteriorly rounded shoulders, ‘Douche Bag’ shoulders as Kelly Starrett would call them. A good way to help reposition those shoulders back in the socket where they should be would to be focus on more pulling than pushing. For example, for each set on the bench press you perform, perform 2 sets of chin ups. This, along with some soft tissue and t-spine mobility work (more on these later) and you’ll notice a major difference in posture.

2. Mobility Circuits

If you want to move better a good place to start is by focusing more on mobility, specifically t-spine, ankle and hip mobility. Tight, stiff shoulders? Focus on some t-spine mobility drills. Knee pain when you squat? Look at adding some ankle mobility into your program. Low back pain? You guessed it, add some hip mobility movements.

3. Move More

This seems so obvious but it gets overlooked. People need to move more. As a society, we spend way to much time parked on our butt watching television, sitting in class, sitting on a computer or sitting in a car. See a trend – we sit WAY to much. Get up and move more. Get up and walk around the office every 1/2 hour or so. Instead of getting home and sitting in front of the television watching some reality show, take the dog for a walk, you both could use it.

4. Soft Tissue Quality

Performing some type of soft tissue work on yourself on a daily basis, even if its for as little as 5-10 minutes, will do wonders for your posture. Take the time to loosen up some of those tight muscles, which I guarantee you have. A foam roller will work just fine but I am a little more apt to have people use a lacrosse ball. Hunt around your glutes, hamstrings, quads, and scapula and see if you can find some trigger points. Chances are it won’t take you more than 10 seconds to find some gnarly spots to work on. Take the time to get rid of as many of those gnarly sports as possible. Believe it or not proper muscle tissue shouldn’t be sore at all even if your using a lacrosse ball – you’ll be shocked how much better you feel and move (and improve athletic performance due to un-restricted movement patterns) after spending some quality time with a foam roller or lacrosse ball everyday.