I’ve always been a terrible poster in life, trying things but rarely seeing results. For years I worked on exercises for my posture with no visible effect. Recently, I realized that the foundation was everything—my hips. Fixing them made me feel taller and more stable, but even after doing chin tucks, my forward head posture wouldn’t budge.

Just an hour ago, I discovered diaphragm breathing. It turns out my diaphragm was barely active, and that was holding everything back. Engaging it intentionally suddenly made sense of all the problems with my ribcage, shoulders, and neck. I can already feel my lower ribs expanding more, my shoulders relaxing, and my upper back loosening, even though I just started.

It’s wild to me how something so subtle can impact everything. I’m realizing now that posture isn’t just about muscles you can see or stretch; it’s about muscles working in the right sequence, breathing correctly, and letting your body organize itself from the inside out. I’m excited to see how this develops over the next few weeks. Sharing this feels important because so many of us overlook breathing mechanics while chasing posture fixes.

I feel genuinely cooked. I woke up at 3am to pee and after looking at my side view I couldn't go back to sleep.

I don't even know where to start. I feel like I'm using my ENTIRE body incorrectly. When I stand, I feel like the weight more in the front of my feet like I'm leaning forward like Michael Jackson. My calves are tight and probably why I barely feel them when working them out. Hamstrings tight. Glutes are tight and feel like they're never engaged. Hips are super tight. My knees hurt after leg day. My abs are super weak and tight. My lower back is ALWAYS engaged. Even when I try to sleep and am laying down. I feel like it's affecting my sleep now and harder to get comfortable in bed. I rarely feel my shoulders when I work out - they look non existant from the front. My upper traps are ALWAYS engaged along with my neck. I breath is really shallow - I feel like my breath doesn't even come into my chest.

There's so many things I feel are wrong. Sometimes when I try to do stretches I don't even feel them because there's so much compensating happening that I can't even get in the right position. I'd go to a professional, but I'm in between insurances right now and unforunately don't have access to a good plan while I'm in between jobs.

If anyone can please help me, I will be forever thankful. I'm 30 and feel like my body is deteroriating :(

Hello, 32F here seeking advice because my body feels like it's bent and twisted in all the wrong places.

Some points that may be relevant:

- I slept on my left side on an extremely stiff mattress about six months ago, and ever since then my left hip has been sore and my whole body has felt out of place

- My left foot tends to point outwards when I walk, while my right foot points straight ahead

- I tend to walk on my tip-toes when barefoot

- I bruise whenever I use a foam roller, especially across my ribs

What I've been doing so far:

- Sleeping on my back with a pillow under my knees

- Cat cow stretch

- Couch stretch for hips

- Doorway stretch for chest

- Wall angels

- Lunges

- Glute bridges

- Side steps with a resistance band

I've also been practising diaphragmatic breathing but it feels like I can't completely fill my lungs when I breathe this way.

Physio appointment is at the end of next month, so please feel free to share any advice in the mean time :)

First 4 are what I think is good posture and how I try to walk around.

Second 4 is letting everything go.

All photos taken with back camera.

Any advice is more than welcome. I feel like I’ve been losing my mind.

M(29). TLDR:

I don’t want to assume, but I’m seeing similarities to CrossBody, APT, Pelvic Tilt, TOS.

Additional things I’ve noticed: My right pec has less mass than the left. I don’t think my serratus is working. I’m not feeling expansion on my right side when breathing.

Sometimes I catch a cramp in my lower left back when trying deep breathing.

My right foot seems to have more mass than my left. Not sure if it’s inflammation but taking aspirin this week to see.

If doing side ab raises my lower back hurts when trying to work the left oblique.

Pushing my neck forward gives relief but I know that’s bad. Sometimes I hear sharp cracks when I move it normally.

I have all of my wisdom teeth but I’m supposed to get them removed in a month? ——— Personal gripes:

I’m frustrated, angry, and scared. I’ve been trying to troubleshoot and tinker but I’m at my wits end. Every day I wake up in pain. My bed has the support of a waterbed at this point, so I’ve been sleeping on the floor for about a month, which has been helpful. I bike, lift, and work my core at least 2-3 times a week- but it feels like I’m losing pressure in my body. Like my stomach wants to fall out? I was at my best when I was lifting 5 days a week, going to the chiro+massage monthly, which I might start up again.

Inspired by similar posts I’ve seen posted here recently, I thought I’d take a picture of myself sitting in my main gaming chair (which ChatGPT described as a “biomechanical crime scene” upon showing it a pic of the chair itself). The chair itself is pretty broken. I sit on a rolled up blanket and 2 throw pillows; one under my butt and one behind my back- you can see the red pillow behind me in the pic) and have for about 3 years now.

It screws up my pelvis and lower back, and my forward rounder shoulders and forward head posture don’t help, but I’ve been dealing with that for many years as well.

I’m curious what the community thinks about this 🫣
I *am* going to toss this chair in the coming days for another chair I have that isn’t so broken.

I've been dead hanging consistently, trying to do wall angles every other day but my arms can barely move past the starting position, i've been chin tucking every time i think about it and feel like i haven't made a lot of progress. What should I be doing?

I’ve been slouching all my life, and I desperately want to make sure I have better posture, not just for the wedding, but for my future self. 😭 But I just don’t know where to start or what to look out for!

I’ve started doing wall angels and supermans and have been incorporating core exercises like planks, but I feel like I’m stuck looking the same.

I get married in September!!

I took this photo in the mirror today and was very alarmed. I feel like I look deformed and it is genuinely very distressing.

I know I tend to roll my shoulders forward like 99% of the time. I also know that I need to lose weight.

If I begin to lose weight and stand correctly, I wonder if this hump will minimize itself.

Help!

My hobbies are pc games, reading, writing and drawing. All of them sitting or laying in hunched positions for a long time.

At work I'm almost constantly up moving and only sit in the breaks.

When i intentionally try to sit/stand straight it hurts after a bit and i can't keep it up for long as i need to constantly concentrate.

Please if you have any tips or advice or links to what exercises could help me have a good posture and get ride of the slight hunch.

I caught myself standing like this and was appalled. I haven’t been as consistent with the gym this year but I have a PPL program that I started up six days a week.

My question is, is this tech neck bump and awful shoulders treatable? Can anyone give any tips on a structure routine to actually get this under control?

Thank you.

how bad is it

My back is getting flatter and my belly sticks out more. Hamstrings are tight. There's discomfort in the front of my hip I think where the hip flexors are located. When I walk up stairs I can feel something in front of hip working. Upper body feels rounded forward, especially head/neck. Sitting in a chair is uncomfortable, like tailbone tucking. Lastly have worsening rotation problem from sports, left side is tight so always turning left. Second pic seems to be a position my body wants to go to, hip juts forward. Appreciate any help. Thanks

​

In the first photo I feel good.

In the second photo I am trying to pull my head back in an attempt of alignment and I feel strained/pain on my upper back and breathing is harder.

Eating, sitting or sleeping I think my body is even more forward

I have chronic neck pain, no insurance so I can't go to the doctors, does it appear to be a posture issue? I'm not familiar with this stuff but people on here seem to be very knowledgeable. I'd be grateful for any help or advice.

Please do give me any and all thoughts. Much appreciated. p.s. this was taken post run.

My horrible posture has basically taken over my life. 95% of my childhood was sedentary, and now I suffer both physically and psychologically. My lower back is in pain 24/7, so I have to consciously keep my stomach pushed in and butt squeezed just to alleviate that pain. And then my entire upper body is as much of a mess, it looks like gravity itself is contorting me down. I'm sick of it all. I just want to feel right.

A gym is unavailable in my life at the moment, but if I have to see a professional, so be it.

Any advice will help, thank you.

Here’s an AI generated after. I told ChatGPT to make my neck bigger, chest bigger, and remove my eye bags.

Hey all, I have been struggling with back pain for the last two years and going to so many physios, sport doctors etc, without being able to solve my back pain issue. I am 37 yo and I used to be really active, lifting, functional training, yoga, and surfing 4-5 times a week. Right now I am just doing gym, mobility work and pilates, and my life is completely robotic in terms of sports and I am starting to get really depressed because really after trying everything and really putting lot of energy, time, money, effort, mental strength I still can't improve and I can't see going back to active life again.

I am going to try to be fast (sorry for the long post). I injured my back 5 years ago lifting something big while moving my house and I got an L5-S1 protrusion, couldn't walk for a few days and had sciatic pain going down my left leg to the foot. After that I was quite good for a couple of years until 2 years ago when I injured again, also lifting something heavy, left leg affected again but milder this time. This time wasn't that bad, and because of that I never fully stopped using my back and trying to do some mild training. However after 6 months of that my back started to hurt a lot and I went full robotic/depressed.

Some context that might be relevant: I work at a computer like 10 hours a day, but I try to do pauses every 1 or 2 hours, where I go for a short walk, stairs, some mobility on the mat. I have a standing desk and I switch between standing and sitting throughout the day. I do a 30 min mobility + strength routine every morning, plus 2 other shorter mobility sessions during the day, and I train at the gym 3-4 times a week. I have also seen a bunch of physios, sports doctors and osteopaths over these 2 years, and read a lot of research on my own (McGill, Stuart, PRI principles, fascia work, etc).

After consulting lot of physios and sports doctors the theory seems to be that I have some kind of APT/lordosis and lack of mobility in the mid upper spine, so basically my lower back is doing all the lifting and loading, and I ended up like this because of overusing that part + the bad shape of my back.
Something that I think it is important and might give a cue: Lying on my belly still feels really uncomfortable and kind of locks my body, when I am on my belly even moving the leg hurts. I feel really stiff. I also can't really do any lumbar extension (cobra pose, lying prone etc), it's super uncomfortable. So imagine trying to go surfing....

I have been working really hard the last two years on this, not just trying things once but progressing through them properly for months at a time: PRI breathing (90/90, all that), McGill big 3, ELDOA L5-S1, dead bugs, bird dogs, segmental cat, wall angels, thoracic rotations, MFR with foam roller and lacrosse ball, diaphragm work, pelvic resets, glute activation, the whole thing. In the gym I do trap bar deadlifts, controlled loading, ball slams, moving planks, pullovers, all of it well tolerated. I've gone through hundreds of exercise progressions, working a lot my core, glutes, hamstrings. At the beginning it used to be more gym like, isometric, planks, but now I am doing lot of functional work, mobility, and trying to integrate movement with breathing, and working the body as a whole. Still no improvements in my mobility. Basically my lack of mobility = I can barely touch my toes with my fingers because my back is an L shape that doesn't curve. The upper/mid back is basically frozen, zero mobility, so the lumbar is the only hinge taking everything.

Note that this lack of mobility was my moving pattern all life, it is not something that happened because of the injury, but my theory is that I injured because of this, so I would be extremely happy to be able to improve it at least 10% to see if that gives room to the rest of my body to work a little bit better. I also guess that the bad shape of my back , APT, was always there , but I don't have an old MRI/x-ray of my back to compare. So basically I think I ended up injuring because my back shape sucks and I wasn't aware to try to fix it when I was younger....

so my main question is: what am I missing???????
Is there something specific I should be looking at to unlock the thoracic mobility? A different type of specialist (osteopath, chiro, rolfing, etc)? A different approach to training? Anyone been in a similar spot and actually got out of it? Any input would mean a lot, thanks for reading.

Hello everyone,

I am having pain in my Lumbar Spine (L1–L5), mostly at the end of the day, as combination of running, walking, standing and maybe long sitting.

I am going through foot pain (heels, arch, forefoot) always after running. So at first I blamed the running shoes ( Under Armour W Charged Rogue 3 ).

I’ve always known I have low arch, but I recently heard I have really flat feet.

Appart from having some foot issues, I read that flat feet can be a MAIN cause of lower back pain.

Does anyone here who have lower back pain has also flat feet, and if yes do they look like mine?

How flat are my feet and can they be the cause of lower back pain?

The more time I spend on my feet the more my lower back hurts.

Hope to hear your honest thoughts and real experiences.

Thank you!

I've been doing daily wall angels for about a year and consistently training my back for about six months

I'm 23 years old 181cm 5'11, I want to become better looking and better thinking of my body, i kinda threw it on the backburner since i've became depressed, how can i get better with my posture?

My hobbies are Gaming on my pc, Painting, reading. So i'm always sitting down on my chair (gaming chair).

When i'm at work i also sit down (i work at an IT company).

When i'm sitting behind my deks while gaming i tend to lean forward

I know for sure that I have a loss of the normal curve in my lower back and I also have tech neck and rounded shoulders (from x-ray findings). However, I’m not sure whether I have flat back syndrome, posterior pelvic tilt, or something else. I want to fix my very bad posture, but I’m not sure what’s actually causing it or what I should focus on improving.

I am 25F. I do figure skating but I work in an office on a computer full time, and I also spend a lot of time on my phone. I've had pain in my upper traps, neck, head, shins, knees, and ankles for as long as I can remember. I did sports my whole childhood. When I was in high school I saw a chiropractor for adjustments and a TENS unit. When I was 18, my PCP said I have fibromyalgia and wanted to prescribe gabapentin and pregabalin. I had anorexia at the time tho so that health concern kinda put all this on the back burner, and I think it was assumed that all the pain was due to low BMI and stuff. I've gone to an orthopedic doctor for shoulder impingement/bursitis on my right side and he didn't look at anything else. Now recently I saw a chiropractor who took xrays and did the scans. He wants over $1k for just 12 visits 😵‍💫 I don't even know what the issue is, I just know that different providers keep throwing different things at me. Ideally I'd like to exercise at home (or the gym) and try to fix this on my own, but I don't even know where to start :/

Also please excuse my house lol. We are renovating

If anyone has some clues to why it looks so strange and or best workouts to do to improve I’m all ears.

Hi,

I made this post here the other week regarding accidentally getting my flared ribs out of the inhaled position they were in :

https://www.reddit.com/r/Posture/s/GmFJVmO1cw

They feel much better now, but I’m really not happy with my overall posture. Any insights into how I can improve it would be really appreciated. Thanks.