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Comment by madeuptempacct | Hacker News Reader

My impression is that if you have good posture to begin with, you might just "lift right" off the bat. I have to do a ton of supplementary work to balance out my posture issues. And the progress is slower than people generally like to admit.

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my posture has always been pretty terrible (until I got to higher weights and my posture has straightened out) so I'm not sure its that. Though I think squatting with a low bar and not moving up in weight until I was happy with my form may have helped to compensate for that.

Strange. From lifting I developed what seems to be pretty common: anterior pelvic tilt. My lower back muscles being tight would pull my hips back. This went away with some stretching. Also I stopped doing Yates rows which I think compounded that issue. I'm happy posture-wise but do get the sense my shoulders should naturally fall further back. I think shoulder droop is the hardest thing to get rid of if you work a desk job.

This might be an example what the GP meant about doing core work in addition to squatting. If your lower back is strong, your abs need to be strong too to keep things in balance.

Core strength matters, but the perpetual shortening of muscle strands is understated. If you're just standing on two feet, strong core won't keep your hips from being tilted back involuntarily, ime. Not how I got rid of the problem.

if you're working your lower back during squats, your form is incorrect and you're risking injury. Your spine should be neutral throughout the movement - the lifting force comes primarily from your quads and glutes.

Er, it's part of the posterior chain and squats will always target the lower back to an extent, both high and low-bar. Squats were one of Arnold's favorite lower-back exercises. No way you walk away from heavy squats without feeling it there.

to be clear, I meant working as in bearing load - of course your lower back will be active in stabilising your spine through the movement, as will your core. So you're going to feel that, especially if you're keeping tight. But your lower back shouldn't be generating the force necessary to lift the weight.

OK, we agree

Yes, you should not good-morning the weight.

But if you are low-bar squatting, your back isn't going to be completely upright, and so keeping a significant weight at a angle requires muscular contraction. Your back is going to get worked.

Hell, even high-bar isn't completely upright, and even if it was, you'll get tension there.

What stretches did you do to help with your APT? I think I have it slightly and would like to work on it.

I would stretch my hip flexors by lying on my stomach and grabbing one leg at a time by the heel, and also go into a super-low squat position while holding on to something for support, letting the low back really stretch. Another one was lying on my stomach, arms above me somewhat wider than shoulder width, and twisting from one side to the other. I'm not sure which of these helped most but between them my APT disappeared.

It could be that we are taking different approaches to do the same thing - you hold off on moving up in weight and repeat the exercises, whereas I hold off, repeat the exercise, and do supplementary glute and core work to avoid my spine curving too much in the "right" way.

yeah that makes sense. Either way is a "safety first" approach, which is the most important factor.

How did you evaluate your posture? Did you hire a trainer?

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