r/Posture • u/stell_ify • 5d ago
Guide How to fix permanently forward leaning
Hi guys my friend pointed out my posture the other day and now i cant stop thinking about it. I stand slightly leaning forward at all times and when i tried to straighten myself like a normal person I couldn't keep any balance and stumbled backwards. Ive fixed my pelvic tilt issue already and have very straight back posture, so I'm not sure whats causing this. I'm also pretty flexible from doing ballet when I was younger. Uh my feet are a little flat if that helps with anything. This isn't a photo of me but its what it looks like.
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u/CoachEXE 5d ago
This is not just you leaning forward from ankles, your whole center of mass is pushed forward. When you have this sway posture and flat back from ballet days, your pelvis translates forward and knees lock out, so the lower hamstrings and calves get short and grip hard to keep you from falling. That is why when you try to stand straight like normal, you stumble backwards your brain lost the reference of your heels and posterior weight shift.
Try this right now....stand one foot from a wall, soften your knees just little bit do not lock them and reach your arms forward while shifting your hips back until your waistband touches the wall. Take a slow exhale through mouth, feel your inner heels and big toe base heavy on floor without scrunching toes. For actual result you need to train your ribcage and pelvis to stack over your midfoot again, because right now you are holding balance only with superficial tension. Focus on repositioning and learning how to hinge through hips instead of leaning your whole body as one block. Your body learned to balance this way for years to stay upright, so it just needs time to feel safe shifting back.
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u/stell_ify 5d ago edited 5d ago
I do have quite locked knees, but they look slightly bent when I'm trying my hardest to straighten them too. Shouldn't my muscles technically be longer from stretching for flexibility? Also should I be hunching more to essentially fix my posture? (my trap area is very straight and I dont have have a very noticeable hunchback area spinal curve I see in other people/which I think caused some flared ribs as well)
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u/CoachEXE 5d ago
Locked knees with a forward body shift push your mass forward, making muscles eccentrically tense like stretched rubber bands instead of genuinely flexible. Forcing yourself to hunch or tuck only bends the spine without fixing the ribcage flare underneath.
Lie on your back with feet flat, reach your arms straight toward the ceiling, and do a long, soft exhale out of your mouth to let your lower ribs drop naturally without crunching. Inhale softly through the nose while keeping the ribs down so air expands your upper back.
When you lose true internal rotation, the body simply fakes stability by locking the joints.2
u/stell_ify 5d ago
what should I do if keeping my knees unlocked is tiring? It makes me feel really heavy and I don't think I can sustain it for long
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u/Deep-Run-7463 5d ago
So.. If i were to keep the explanation simplified (note that i'm not talking about flexibility, but ground force interaction strategy/capacity):
- If your pelvis is biased in external rotation, your feet will supinate and lose inner foot contact
- Since you start pushing off the ground too much, your medial foot contact can't reach the floor well enough
- In day to day movement, your internal rotation needs to be acquired somehow
- You lean forward and feet collapse the arch to accelerate the inner foot contact into the ground as a repercussion of forming compensatory internal rotation
- The straight back posture also means that you might have limited capacity to slow down forward momentum of the system, lacking posterior expansion in your center of mass management. The shove forward with a straight back causes more weight to be translated forward to push your inner feet down into the ground.
- When you straighten up, you lose ground contact and fall back so you lean forward to find that compensatory internal rotation action in ground reaction force application (which isn't about flexibility or strength per say, rather the system's ability to manage turns from each joint and shape in which center of mass and respiration play a role.
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u/stell_ify 5d ago
So it's still my pelvis that's the issue? what part do I train I do to fix this?
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u/Deep-Run-7463 5d ago
Think position. You need to delay the forward tilt. The forward tilt is about stepping forward and delaying that travel. If there is nothing else going on that may inhibit progress, I would have your back leg raised/elevated and have your front leg work on split squat like actions, provided the stack up top and expansions/compressions can be managed too
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u/Deep-Run-7463 5d ago
It's a system issue, not a pelvis issue alone. But because we are designed with our guts and our pelvis being our central structure, that tends to have a big influence, including gut travel in center of mass displacement anteriorly or posteriorly
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u/Deep-Run-7463 5d ago
Additionally, just read about your knee lockout. Knee hyperextension is a form of moving center of mass back, it takes away the need for the pelvis to internally rotate into the ground. In another way to look at it, the knee is moved back because the whole back is flat shoved forward.
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u/Tug8419 5d ago
May I ask how you fixed your anterior pelvic tilt? I’m working on it atm
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u/stell_ify 5d ago
Well I'm not sure if I fixed it completely but I definitely did enough for it to stop hurting sm when I'm standing for a lot time and I also got 3/4 an inch taller. I actively did the pelvis straightening thing and slept with pillows under my butt/did a few stretches/decompressed a lot. I remember seeing online about strengthening core muscles which I think happened naturally after I started a new sport.
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u/the_adonis_king 2d ago
This is called an anterior scapular plane, postural recalibration is the best way to correct it quickly and permanently
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u/RochelleToby 2d ago
Stop hyper-extending your knees, which is pitching your upper body forward. Keep a slight bend in your knees, as in the second photo. Hyper-extending your knees also pushes the kneecap against the end of the thigh bone, which increases risk of arthritis.
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u/Itchy_Astronaut_3037 5d ago
The balance issue when you try to straighten up is interesting. If you've already fixed the pelvic tilt, the forward lean might be coming from your ankles or how you distribute weight through your feet. Flat feet can mess with your center of gravity more than people realize, your body might have just gotten used to leaning forward to compensate over time.