Biomechanist Katy Bowman demonstrates three alignment cues you can use. – By Meghan Kita

If you’ve ever looked at a photo of yourself – from a race, a party, or a work event – and shuddered at your slumpiness, the video above is for you.

I first noticed my own mild “kyphosis,” the technical term for a forward curve in the upper back, when I underwent a form assessment in an attempt to correct a nagging hip injury. The physical therapist noted it on my report, and I saw it for myself in the stills from the video of me running.

“Do I really look like that?” I thought. “Yikes.”

Most of us look like that – shoulders rounded, head lolling forward – in part because we spend so much time looking at computer or smartphone screens, which tend to be in front of and below our field of vision. Running compounds the issue: It takes less energy to run with the help of gravity, and having your head and chest farther forward than the rest of your body is more efficient than trying to maintain perfect alignment from head to toe, according to Katy Bowman, a biomechanist who’s written books like Move Your DNA.

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However, holding that forward posture while running and at rest makes injuries more likely over time, as you’re taxing parts of your body that aren’t designed to bear that much stress, Bowman says. (And besides, it’s not aesthetically pleasing.) So I asked Bowman how to perfect my posture during my workouts and, perhaps more importantly, during the other 23 hours of the day.

“The idea of looking for the perfect posture is the mindset of a sedentary culture: I have to be still, so how can I be still optimally?” Bowman says. “Instead, proper alignment is a way of distributing your weight to tissues that can respond and adapt, versus giving your weight to ligaments and to areas of your body that aren’t really robust to carry that bulk of weight.”

Bowman shared three cues that helped me improve my standing alignment, which you can learn in the video. The new position looks a lot more upright and natural, but it absolutely does not feel natural, especially at first – if you’re as hunched over and tight as I am, you’ll know you’re doing the “neck ramp” properly if you hear some cracking in your neck and upper back.

I wish I could say that I move around the world this way with ease now, but I don’t: “It’s simple, but you have to constantly stay engaged in it,” Bowman says. I am at least able to pose for non-running photos without being hunched over – so that’s a start.

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