We all know that, for better or worse, people form opinions of us before they actually get to know us — before we even say a word.
That is why fashion and fitness have become multi-billion dollar industries.
But I think, the thing that gets the least amount of money and the least amount of attention, your posture
actually has the biggest impact on how people perceive you — how confident you are, how attractive you are, how much of a leader you look like.
So my goal with this video is to make the ultimate posture video for you.
I picked the three most common postural issues that most people have and I'm going
to talk about what causes them, how to prevent them, and how to fix them
if you already are starting to see a little bit of postural issues.
The truth is we all have them no one is perfect so
the first one I want to talk about is the forward head.
And I'm exaggerating here but to some extent, we all have this in the technology
age we live in because we're on our phones and our computers and that's what causes the problem.
You look down when you text
or you try to get closer to the screen and your head is out of alignment.
Your head should just rest on your neck; it should just sit on the vertebra effortlessly.
But by pulling it out, you create dozens of pounds of force on your poor neck
that eventually loses strength in the back and gets tight in the front
and that is what causes the forward head posture.
So the first thing to do is prevent that from happening as best you can.
There's two ways to do this — one is a product called Lumo Lift; I have no affiliation to want to make no money from it but
it's just a little sensor that you put on yourself that will tell you when you're slouching.
The second one I actually prefer to the extent is that you can put a mirror where you work
so that you can actually just look at yourself and glance and see.
A lot of this is just awareness — just becoming aware that, "Oh, wow. My head is forward and my posture sucks."
That said, like almost all of us do, if you have some forward head posture
and you're not perfectly aligned from your shoulder to your ear, there's two things to do.
The first is a stretch and the second is an exercise.
You want to stretch these front neck muscles.
It's very easy and it takes about a minute and a half you just do
30 seconds like this with your neck leaned back stretching the front
and then 30 seconds to one side and 30 seconds to the other side.
You'll feel it right here and that's how you know you're doing it right.
Now don't just smash the back of your head backwards like this.
You don't want to create that tension; you don't wanna lift your shoulders — you just want to have good neck and then stretch back.
And you'll feel it right away especially if you do have this forward head posture.
And the second thing you want to do is strengthen the back of your neck.
I don't want this video to be an hour of daily routine so I'm gonna save that
and combine it with another exercise that fixes the second problem so there's
less for you to do and you can fix your posture in less time.
So that said, the second most common postural issue that I see is slouching
with your chest and having kind of a hunchback.
And this, as you can tell, plays very nicely with the forward head posture
and it's something that if you don't correct, you end up with that question mark
shape back as you enter old age and you need a walker and, you know,
it's not a pretty sight and it's very physically debilitating so how do you fix that?
What causes that? What causes that is a tight chest and weak back muscles.
Now I don't mean bodybuilder back muscles; there's actually a lot of huge big
gladdened guys that do have this issue and they look kind of like gorillas, right?
I know that because I used to be one. So you want to focus on the back muscles
that hug your spine — they're called the erectors and they hold you erect.
So first, the stretch. For your chest — best chest stretch I've ever seen comes from Joe Rogan and it's just hanging.
I've tried a lot of things and I have personally found this to be the best for my chest my shoulders and my posture.
So all you do is find a pull-up bar at the gym or buy one of the pull-up bars that you can put in a doorframe for your house and you hang.
You just grab it and then you release and you use your own body weight to
pull your shoulders and your chest out and in a perfect straight line that relieves some of that tension.
Now if you don't belong to a gym and you don't want to spend the money on a pull-up bar,
there's a second stretch that I think works really well; you don't have to do both — you can but this is just a doorframe stretch.
So you find any doorframe and you put your arm at a right angle like this,
stick it to the doorframe, and then turn and stretch.
The goal is not to just rotate as much as you can; I see people do this and they go,
"I want to stretch as far as possible," and their head starts to come forward.
It's a postural stretch so keep your spine straight, hinge with the door
and then just stretch and you'll feel a nice stretch here — hold that for a minute;
switch to the other side and hold that for a minute.
If you do that every single day for just those two minutes,
you will notice a difference in how loose and mobile your chest is and your posture will automatically improve.
Now, the exercise here to fix your posture, strengthen those erectors, strengthen your neck —
I call it wall angels and I don't know if you'll be able to see this so I might
have to voice over with myself doing the exercise against the wall but I will try.
So you start by putting your arms at a 45-degree angle like this
like you're making a snow angel butt against the wall and then
you raise them up till they're parallel to the ground, create right angles
with your arms and then press above your head.
Now it sounds simple but there's a couple things to focus on.
First, you want to have perfect posture before you start which means —
heels against the wall, but against the wall, back against the wall, back of your head against the wall.
That's gonna be really hard if you have that forward head posture.
Don't cheat and tilt back; just put it as far as you can.
If you can't get it perfectly flat against the wall, that's okay.
And then during the wall angel movement, you want to make sure that you keep
your elbows against the wall and the back of your hands against the wall the whole time.
This is going to be very tough. If you're doing this right, you are going to be
sweating, you're going to be shaking, and you're going to be surprised how
deceptively difficult this is. That's okay; do the best that you can.
Aim for 20 reps, take a minute break, then 20 reps again.
If you can't do that work your way up, it's totally fine but that's it;
it's very quick but it has a very, very noticeable impact.
You'll be tired afterwards and you'll notice, "Wow, I'm standing up straighter immediately," as soon as you do it.
The third thing that I see is a common postural issue that's called anterior pelvic tilt
also known as duck butt and I suffered from this as well.
It is where your hips, instead of being parallel to the ground like this, tilt like that
and your butt sticks out and this is an issue because your spine is all connected to
your pelvis so if your pelvis is out of whack, every vertebrae is not where it's supposed to be.
You're creating pressure, you're gonna pinch nerves, it leads to health issues,
bowel issues, back pain, neck pain, and it can really create a ton of turmoil up the chain.
It's caused by two things — tight hip flexors and weak glutes.
And this mostly comes from sitting so a really great cure for this is to try not to sit,
get a standing desk if you have to sit, get up every hour or so and just
take a quick walk around like we talked about in the productivity video that makes you more productive anyway so it's a good win-win.
If you do have this tilt, you'll know because if you look in the mirror, your belt
won't sit perfectly parallel to the ground; it'll tilt forward so the forward of your belt
will be low and the back your belt will be high.
And it creates a weird potbelly and your butt sticks out, it's not good,
doesn't look good, and it's bad for health so how do you fix it?
Get into a lunge and stretch your hip flexors.
Put one knee on the ground and your other foot up so that your legs are forming right angles.
And then just lean into the stretch; you'll feel it right away.
If you want to intensify it, lean away from the hip flexor that you're trying to stretch
but these hurt and don't push it because you can tear it — just nice and easy,
set a timer for a minute, lean into it, and you'll feel it when you're doing it correctly.
And then the second thing to strengthen your glutes is called bird dogs.
This I'm definitely gonna have to demonstrate because it's kind of hard to explain
without a visual so go easy on me in the comments but this is what a bird dog looks like.
And you start with your hands and knees on the ground like you're forming a tabletop; your torso is parallel to the ground.
And then you lift one arm up in front of you using the scapula muscles —
the muscles between your shoulder blades — and at the same time, you lift your leg
up using only your glutes. Don't arch your back or use your low back in this.
Keep your core tight, lift your leg with your glutes, and lift your hand with the scapular muscles.
It's very tiring and it's deceptively difficult but you will immediately feel it;
you'll feel stronger the next day and if you do this every day,
you will very, very quickly have strong glutes, a strong back, and better posture.
So those are the three horsemen if you want to call it of bad posture —
it is forward head posture, a hunchback, and anterior pelvic tilt.
That's what causes it, the stretch is to loosen what's too tight, and how to strengthen what is too weak.
And if you do this every day for just five to ten minutes,
you will noticeably have better posture and you will see a reaction from other people that you like.
So that's how to have a better first ten seconds of a first impression.
That's not all that a first impression is, unfortunately.
You do, at some point, have to talk when you're meeting people so Charlie shot
a video which has the four emotions that guarantee an amazing first impression,
the order you put them in, and why most people screw that order up and why that butchers their first impression.
If you want to check out that video, you can click this link here.
I'll also include a link in the description and if you want more videos like this,
we do one every Monday and every Thursday.
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whenever we release them. Thanks for watching and I will see you in the next video.