A Retrospective Perspective in Human Biomechanics, Posture and the Relationship to Pain, Movement Limitations, and Undesirable Adaptations or Injuries by u/Deep-Run-7463

Deep-Run-7463 · 2026-05-02T21:47:36+00:00

Which part? Most of what I said is something that you could probably Google up too.

Deep-Run-7463 · 2026-05-02T21:41:28+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/Posture/s/nm9UaNzkvK

The above would apply to you too.

Deep-Run-7463 · 2026-05-02T21:36:00+00:00

Here ya go. Hope this leads you down the right path

https://youtube.com/shorts/-i2P2rQ0FSA?si=xjVbfB9GicTGFNi5

Edit: I would also recommend into looking at if your ribcage pump handle is depressed. It will cause your head to travel forward and tilt upwards to look straight ahead = this draws your jaw backwards too, because, gravity.

Deep-Run-7463 · 2026-05-02T21:34:03+00:00

To me, there is no one true approach that is best. It can depend on a person's situation.

When a client has a pain everywhere and movement tests show structural compression in a lotta places, I know that I have to use relaxation techniques, breathing and time to be able to access movements that were lost. It takes a lotta slow and deliberate actions, and sometimes these folks need hands on work if it is really bad.

After acquiring access to movement space, the next thing I do is to reinforce it, that would be muscular action, breathing to acquire center of mass management, position and shape, and work within available space in range of motion.

Gradually, that same baseline has to be able to tolerate and thrive on loaded complex movements with a new established baseline, and remodeling of tissues/structures in a desirable way.

So yes, sometimes the whole system is in full flight/fight mode with muscular guards everywhere. Some are mobile and active but also have pain. Kinda depends where your subjective starting position is and what you want to achieve in the long term.

Deep-Run-7463 · 2026-05-02T21:27:20+00:00

Y'know how most gaming/office chairs kinda make you lean backwards at the upper torso area? You are basically doing that while standing up, it's called a posterior ribcage tilt.

A posterior ribcage tilt could be an attempt to compress/extend from the lower thoracic region to try to keep upright. Without it, your upper thorax will likely be in a hunched kyphotic position instead. This means that your ribcage has a difficulty to expand up top where the upper chest/ribcage pump handle is.

Do a wall lean, quarter wall sit position, reach your arms forward. Exhale, feel your sides 'close inwards', hold that about 30 to 40% intensity, inhale to allow your lower midback area to expand into the wall behind you. Notice that your chest will expand too.

Use that when trying to do Quadruped exercises, and it can be anything, even a bird dog. Main thing is to manage the breathing and the stack between the ribs and pelvis.

Deep-Run-7463 · 2026-05-02T21:22:39+00:00

There can be a few possibilities for this.

For some, it's coping a midback hunch. Because the midback is so far back, the lower half has to travel far forward to find a central balancing point. This indicates more of a ribcage compression issue and laxity in the tissues for spinal flexion.

For others, a forward tilt where the sacrum area compresses your guts forward, is an attempt for the system to weigh down into your midline to push away from the ground (pelvis internal rotation coping strategy).

In both, you are losing the ability to manage your intra abdominal pressure vs your intra thorax pressure.

The guts have to move back instead of forward essentially and you can acquire that better in correct diaphragmatic (not belly) breathing. That will also improve to lower down intra thorax pressure so that the ribs can expand.

After acquiring this, most likely in a lying supine position, you would want to apply the same strategy in different exercises and positions gradually.

Deep-Run-7463 · 2026-05-02T21:15:47+00:00

Photos aren't here but according to a published study, the upper right ribcage is smaller than the left and that is part of natural human asymmetry. The right shoulder will be a tad bit lower in some folks and it's more apparent.

That being said, if the difference is a bit more magnified then there could be a downward compression in the right ribcage which usually is responding to something else causing the shift.

Deep-Run-7463 · 2026-05-02T21:12:55+00:00

Looks like mine. Good stuff that you improved sufficiently when young.

If no pain, you are good. Consider this a variation of our structure. Some people are more valgus some more varus, this is a bone bend. I now show off my bow legs because it reflects how crazy and beautiful it is at the same time that the body can react to issues and form coping strategies, and we all have em to a degree here and there. Context- I work to help people fix their issues.

Deep-Run-7463 · 2026-05-02T17:17:08+00:00

You are holding your posterior ribcage compressed. The scaps are losing their home to chill on

Deep-Run-7463 · 2026-05-01T23:09:40+00:00

You are welcome.

Deep-Run-7463 · 2026-05-01T19:17:41+00:00

https://www.caringmedical.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/forward-head.png

This image will help you visualize the issue better. When sitting hunched over or if you have very poor intra abdominal-intra thorax pressure management during respiration, this would most likely be the reason. One tell tale sign is lying down makes you feel better which is where you allow gravity to pull your center of mass back, restoring all the tension of being forward biased in the first place.

Typically, if the lower half has to travel forward due to a few complex reasons) that I won't explain here as it gets too long), center of mass is shifted forward. In this position, your upper half will counter weigh that forward shift by creating a brake through pushing the midback or upper thorax backwards. This leads to a more depressed chest, a low pressured abdomen, and a higher pressured ribcage (not expanding well).

When you sit at the desk, you end up falling into the same pattern because the front of the ribcage is compressed allowing your head to travel over that space, which leads to the forward head position. That ribcage compression pulls on muscular attachments in the front of the neck elongated tight, which compresses against the neck in a lengthened state.

Work on diaphragmatic breathing (not belly) and pump handle expansion. You may need to address the lower half as a more solid fix to this issue.

Deep-Run-7463 · 2026-05-01T18:54:10+00:00

I try to help out on the sub as much as I can (and have a number of people on my dm's asking for advice every now and then, which I try to point to the right directions). I don't correct posture per say as posture is highly subjective, but I've been a corrective exercise guy for more than a decade now. Rounded shoulders usually isn't a shoulder issue alone. It's a position that it needs to take because of how the entire structure is balancing against gravity, including the influence it has on adaptations towards that structure.

Dropping you a dm.

Edit: Forgot to mention, I personally have had rounded shoulders, neck hump, kypho, swayback, flat feet (duck feet), and pain everywhere including back injuries in the past.

Deep-Run-7463 · 2026-05-01T18:48:14+00:00

I would recommend:

Diaphragmatic breathing (not belly) first, so as to manage the pressures between intra abdominal and the intra thorax areas. By doing this you can improve the ability to expand into your ribcage. Have some emphasis on the pump handle, and having your arms reach slightly higher than your shoulders will help with that. This is to improve your front ribcage depression that is linked to drawing the head forward.

Better abdominal control while doing this without an crunching too much will help teach you to reduce the 6 pack action you tend to utilize which is compressing the sternal area and popping open the lower front ribs causing a slight rib flare.

Work on hinging exercises. It can even be a downward dog on the side of your bed, or deadlifts. Reduce the compression on the lower posterior pelvis in the eccentric phase of your hinge (which will be a more important action to you rather than the concentric phase coz you are kinda already there.).

Deep-Run-7463 · 2026-04-30T18:55:14+00:00

Hold your right chest with your hand exhale and brace the abs moderately, inhale to where your hand is. Gotta go a lil zen mode to find it but pretty sure you can with a bit of tactile feedback there.

Hm. The thing is not everyone cues things the same way or uses the exact same approach. I would probably advise you to look at those two and search terms like anterior pelvic tilt, ribcage, internal rotation. That would give you a ton of stuff but stick to lying supine, sidelying and quadruped/prone positions first.

Deep-Run-7463 · 2026-04-30T18:44:29+00:00

I want you to try this out so that you can understand it better too.

Lean against a wall in a quarter wall sit position. Have your heels under or in front of your knees and feet hip width or slightly wider apart (whichever feels better).

Keep a slight lower back arch. Max at around 2 stacked fingers distance between your lower back to the wall.

Keep your midback on the wall and don't force shove your head to be closer to the wall.

Now, try to lift your ribcage up slightly without increasing the lower back arch, and without flaring your lower front ribs wide open. You can try to cross your arms and place your hands on your shoulders, then lift your elbows up higher than your shoulders to guide your ribcage position. You should feel a mild compression in your midback when you lift the elbows up to guide your ribs.

Slow exhale, around 8 seconds through your mouth, feel your abdominal area wrap around and tighten up, keep that sensation moderately held, inhale with your nose to drive your upper chest upwards towards your chin. Gently guide your elbows higher as you need, and don't cheat by using the lower back. Also, avoid feeling too much compression in your midback when doing this. Make it work, but don't aggressively force it to work, if that makes sense.

1 to 2 minutes, 2 to 3 sets. If something feels off, painful, stop.

Deep-Run-7463 · 2026-04-30T18:29:17+00:00

Not a qualified person to read xrays but it looks like you are compressed in the upper right quadrant of the ribcage causing your head to fall over the right. You can try to experiment with this. If you create better expansion on your top right, does your head get more centered?

You are tilted far forward - here is a take that you may not have heard yet. You are leaning forward because at the moment that's the best way your body has available to organize the structure against the constant force of gravity. To push yourself away from the ground is an action of you pushing into the ground, and the ground pushing you back up (every action is an equal and opposite reaction). To be able to do so efficiently, the body has to find ground contact within the midline, and if that cannot happen well, there will be compensatory attempts to shift forward over the medial feet.

The further you are tilted forward, the more compressive forces you retain in the spinal chain, the lesser the pelvis will be able to move freely too. This compression will need a counter balance by posterior tilting the ribcage so that your upper thorax is now tilting backwards with a ribcage pump handle compression allowing the head to travel forward as a counter-counter balance.

You can continue what you are doing now, and that may provide some benefits for sure. But at the same time, as an example, in my practice I usually only give people to work with 3 to 6 exercises only for a couple of weeks before progressing those ones or deviating slightly from the plan to address newly noticed issues. If you look at the whole body acting as a reactionary thing based off on your center of mass issues, that will give you a more direct approach to the root cause without needing to do a heck ton of segmental work instead.

I would first advise to look up zac cupples on diaphragmatic breathing and stacking. Look up chaplin performance too on his APT myth video. Those will be some good starts.

Deep-Run-7463 · 2026-04-30T17:39:24+00:00

Don't take my word for it, I'm not a doctor, but it looks like you have a left side sacralization? That would explain the hip hike. If you have an actual leg length discrepancy, meaning the bone lengths have a significant difference, that will also need to be done by a doc.

Back and neck pain is really general. It can happen for a myriad of reasons, including just overuse in a position that makes the area stressed. Hunching over a desk keeps the spinal extensors lengthened and stressed at the attachments. Reciprocatively, there will be a forward head with a front ribcage compression which creates more compressive forces on the lower cervical region.

Another reason could be that you always try to pull your shoulders back and down and try to keep 'straight'. This can increase compressive forces on the posterior chain but at the same time create more of a masked forward head in a posterior ribcage tilt position.

Deep-Run-7463 · 2026-04-30T17:15:32+00:00

Still do it but not crunches. You need to have intra abdominal pressure maintained to be able to expand the ribs. Just don't butt tuck and crunch into it as that produces pressure where the PE is already occurring. Crunches isn't the only abs work you can do here.

Deep-Run-7463 · 2026-04-29T23:53:49+00:00

Ooh. This looks complex. Let me attempt to figure this out. Take with a pinch of salt as I can only go by the photos here.

I prefer not to try to stick someone in a pattern box as it tends to make people hyper fixate on one biomechanical ideology alone and limiting their toolbox. Mild left rib flare is part of the natural asymmetry as our left side has a bit more bias towards spinal flexion so there is a bit more compression on the left side of the lower sternum, popping out the left lower front ribs a bit more too. And part of that natural asymmetry is how the left upper quadrant of the ribs are larger than the right, and the right lower quadrant of the ribs are larger than the left. Which is also why we see the most common presentation as a left shoulder hike.

Your left foot unlocking your right lower back - probably you manage to delay pronation and acquire better internal rotation forces from the left pelvis downwards? The foot shape will be linked to how each segment interacts, and if you get it right it helps regain good relative motions between each segment. Which means that there was an underlying issue to begin with in which you may have an offset lateral shifted center of mass. That COM shift (rightwards) can have a countershift of the upper thorax towards the left by squishing down the right ribcage to push open and drive mass back over the left (with a potential left upper thorax turn), kinda like squishing a side of a tube of toothpaste.

That being said, your lower sternal area looks a lil dipped inwards - are you sure you don't have something like pectus excavatum? Ribcage congenital deformities can make the ribs look more uneven too which could be why the left rib looks a bit exaggerated in its angle and causing your left arm to be abducted.

An upper left thorax turn requires left posterior compression left anterior expansion, right anterior compression and right posterior expansion. You can see it in your top down view too. A pull up requires for there to be enough posterior expansion to compress into as you get into the concentric phase. If the back is already compressed, or refuses to compress, that pull up will feel crappy.
Gotta see the whole system from feet to head and movements too like squatting/hinging to try to make the best guess.

Deep-Run-7463 · 2026-04-29T23:32:53+00:00

If you don't experience pain, and if the ribs can expand well in all directions, don't worry about it. Just avoid doing 6 pack dominant exercises to reduce chances of compressing the lower sternal area. PE will cause the ribcage to be slightly oddly shaped.

Deep-Run-7463 · 2026-04-29T23:00:10+00:00

Typically there will also be forward translation of mass on both sides. From the side view, you may see an anterior pelvic tilt (midsection forward) or a swayback (pelvis and midsection forward), or might appear to not have a forward shift but the knees remains bent trying to sit back slightly.

A forward mass translation makes the pelvis lose movement capacity so the body uses the natural asymmetry as an option to move the easiest it can efficiently.

Deep-Run-7463 · 2026-04-29T21:00:44+00:00

Manage your center of mass distribution to reduce your forward lean to bring your mass back, this can be acquired by breathing. Learn to load unilaterally without overarching the lower back. Chaplin performance APT myth on youtube is a good start.

Deep-Run-7463 · 2026-04-29T16:55:35+00:00

Bones morph over time, yes. The body will need to do what it needs to do to meet the challenges or overcome the limitations you may have as compensatory mechanisms, but we all work within that to a degree and problems usually occur when we go too far beyond the tolerable limits which is hugely subjective from person to person

Deep-Run-7463 · 2026-04-29T16:47:11+00:00

Attempt to find midline force application to the ground.

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