One of the biggest dilemmas I have had as a personal trainer throughout my career is knowing how to implement a genuinely biomechanically effective posture. When I first started as a trainer, I was always told to bring your hand on someones scapular region and have them go into scapular retraction, so that the person would get improvement in their posture and effectively get better muscle recruitment in their body. As I began to understand the context of where a human body operates relative to its environment, it became quite indicative to me that what I was being taught was very inconclusive.

Over the last few years, I have been obsessively trying to understand where the root of human problems are stemming from, so that I could get a better understanding of what foundations I need to work off to solve those problems. In this case, how do I get a real activation of the thoracic spine and lower scapular muscles without systematically weakening the rest of the body. Specifically for this blog post, trying to get scapular retraction, scapular depression and thoracic extension without use of the lumbar erector spinae to over-compensate.

Since people have wired in the imbalances from sitting for hours on end, we have to understand that our body’s biomechanics will be inclined to replicate the biomechanics of sitting, even in the most “functional” movements you could accomplish.

In this video, I explain to Bryce Shepard exactly what it is influencing his Lumbo Thoracic region from getting proper engagement, and in turn limiting a genuinely strong posture. Enjoy!