Posture-lating with Posture Ellie

In this episode, Posture Ellie answers two more listener questions, helping someone who is a professional golfer and has found that her more balanced posture has disrupted her golf swing and someone else who wants tips on how to handle multiple sites of pain. Where do you start first and how do you approach it? Other Info - Pre-order my book ‘Posture Power’ - https://watkinspublishinglinks.com/pos...

In this episode, Posture Ellie answers three more listener questions, helping someone who asks if stretching everyday is helpful, another who asks how posture relates to a more comfortable pregnancy and someone else who asks how posture impacts all of the other systems of the body. Other Info - Pre-order my book ‘Posture Power’ - https://watkinspublishinglinks.com/posture-power - Start your one mo...

In this episode, Posture Ellie answers two more listener questions, helping someone who is struggling to find time to prioritise posture (and finds themself more drawn towards strength training, even though it's causing tension and injury) and also another posture therapist who is tired of dealing with 'whiny' friends and family. Other Info - Pre-order my book ‘Posture Power’ - http...

In this episode, Posture Ellie answers two more listener questions, giving her thoughts on chiropractors and dealing with lockjaw. With the lockjaw, as with any symptom of pain, it's important to look at the body as a whole system, and not hone in on the area that hurts. Whilst lockjaw can and does have postural causes (a bit like discussed last week, if the head isn't sitting properly o...

In this episode, Posture Ellie tackles two questions posed by some Posture Squad members on Instagram. One person wanted to know "When do you know it's the right time to return to other exercise?" and the other wanted to know "Quick fixes and tips for left side jaw pain?". If you have a question you'd like Ellie to tackle in a future episode, do let her know!  Recomme...

In this episode, Posture Ellie defines how a posture practice can help with both 'types' of hypermobility. There's the more common type, where someone has one (or a few) hypermobile/hyperextensive joints, typically the knees and elbows. This type of hypermobility is a straight forward movement and posture issue, caused by the joints on either side not performing functionally (causin...

In this more chatty personal episode, Posture Ellie talks through her reasoning as to why she's decided to take a 3 month break from her 'social media drug of choice', Instagram. As a small business owner, it's scary to come off Instagram as there's a rhetoric that social media is compulsory. And, even though Ellie can totally see the benefits of a well executed social med...

In this episode, Posture Ellie talks us through the physical role of the Psoas (the deepest core muscle, responsible for lumbar stabilisation and keeping us upright) and also the emotional role of the Psoas (in terms of it's connection to stress and how it stores trauma and stress in the body). Tension in the Psoas muscle is a) very common due to the amount of time we keep it in contraction w...

In this episode, Posture Ellie delves into 3 postural reasons as to why you might get Sinusitis (inflammation of the Sinuses) - a general lack of movement, a forward head position and, crucially, poor breathing mechanics. If we are habitually mouth breathing, we expose ourselves to be more susceptible to all manner of different ailments and conditions, one of these being Sinusitis. A key reason fo...

In this episode, Posture Ellie tackles 3 separate mini-topics (as requested by listeners) - Cramping, Wobbling and Earthing. She walks us through why cramping and wobbling are so beneficial in our posture exercises; and why she thinks wobbling can also lead to big emotional releases too. The principles of Earthing are fascinating to look into (and make intuitive sense to most!) and can really redu...

In this topic, Posture Ellie delves into one of her favourite topics ... barefoot movement! When we talk about 'barefoot movement', we are talking about being unshod, as well as wearing 'barefoot shoes' which allow for the natural, unrestricted and unaltered movement of the human foot. Most modern shoes are narrow, cushioned, heeled (at least marginally) and with stiff soles .....

To celebrate the launch of the 12 day 'Aligned in 10' Challenge, which combines gentle, short posture videos with a healthy habit to integrate into each day (and repeatable at any point on The Posture Squad software), Posture Ellie wanted to do an episode talking through some major lifestyle changes she has made over the last 10 years. Of course, this is not advice that you might want to...

In this episode, Posture Ellie talks through the relationship that a committed posture practice plays in helping you enjoy (for a long time without injury!) your favourite sports, hobbies and exercise. Firstly, she discusses how our understanding of 'exercise' is perhaps not what is best for the hunter-gatherer evolved human body. On top of that, we take our imbalanced, stiff 'chair...

In this episode, Posture Ellie helps you to figure out which posture routines you should choose that will suit your body and your posture. The absolute KEY thing to remember/understand is that you mustn't be a heat-seeking missile towards routines that tackle the areas of your body that hurt. For example, if you have hip pain you need to keep AWAY from hip routines, if you have shoulder pain...

In this episode, Posture Ellie walks listeners through why we can compare our body and our posture to the layers of onion. As the years go on and dysfunctions and compensations take more and more of a hold on our movement patterns, we create many different 'layers' that have to unpicked in a different order. As you peel away the latest layer of compensation, you reveal the one hiding bel...

In this episode (we've finished the 10 Posture Commandments now!), Ellie gets quite personal and vulnerable and talks about how her body in recent years seems to reflect her mental state. Whilst she doesn't claim to have the answers or the 'whys', emotions and traumas definitely get 'stuck' in the tissues of our body. And, if we don't move enough or confront the...

This is the final episode discussing the 10 Posture Commandments. When embarking on a journey of healing and self-discovery, like posture, it's so important to realise you aren't alone, even if it feels like it. Feeling isolated and hopeless is not a motivating place to be and, even if you're struggling and in pain, it's so reassuring to have people around you who understand. T...

A sure-fire way to keep yourself stuck is to keep comparing yourself to your former self, a future version of your self or other people. In this episode, Ellie aims to give listeners a 'firm talking to' about how futile comparison is. If you want to progress with your posture, you can only meet your body where it's at right now. If you're treating your body how it was 30 years...

When it comes to our posture exercises, many people stumble because they keep pushing for more and won't stop. More exercises, more intensity, more effort ... there's a belief that change will only occur if you're pushing really hard and trying ALL the things. This is totally misguided. As per Posture Commandment No.4 'Don't force anything', you can only move at the p...

In this episode, Posture Ellie seeks to manage expectations about how quickly you'll make longer-term changes that truly stick. As covered in last week's episode, when an exercise/routine suits your posture, you will know about it right away, as your body will start feeling less tense immediately. However, these changes don't stick for very well because, as soon as you get up, you g...

In this episode, Posture Ellie dives into her 6th Posture Commandment: 'change happens quickly (when you're on the right track)'. Because so many more conventional methods of reducing pain are so symptom-driven (not root cause driven), change doesn't really happen. This warps many people's expectations of how QUICKLY change CAN happen, when you're doing the right thin...

In this episode, Posture Ellie (tries) to spell out the KEY differential between posture therapy and most conventional methods of reducing pain: symptom chasing is a waste of time and stops us from healing. Most conventional methods treat pain as if the pain (or area of pain) is the problem. Posture Therapy sees pain (or an area of pain) as a cry for help, but not the problem itself. When you can...

In this episode, Posture Ellie delves into Posture Commandment No. 4, 'Don't force anything'. Learning not to force, yank, crank or push your body to do things it doesn't want to do, is one of the quickest ways to learn how to respect your body's wisdom and is the basis behind yoga's famous phrase, 'sthira sukham asanam'. This is all about your finding your...

In this episode, Ellie touches upon (just the surface of) how important the breath is and why it's integral to well executed posture exercises. The breath is both a symptom of and remedy to nervous system dysregulation. Many people are chronically breath-holding whilst under stress and many people are chronically mouth and/or over breathing whilst under stress. We don't want our posture...

When starting out with posture, one of the hardest things to identify is the differences between 'bad pain' and 'good pain'. Whilst I disagree that any pain is 'good pain' (all pain is merely a warning signal that something is wrong), many clients will use 'good pain' to describe hard work. Hard work is exactly what we want for your body as you move through...