Posture, Alignment and the Quest for Not Walking Like a Crumpled Paper Bag

By Riccardo Galeotti, Functional Biomechanics Specialist, Acupuncturist & Chief Posture Detective at The Body Lab

What Is Posture?

Let’s get this out of the way: posture isn’t just about standing up straight like you’re being told off by a nun in high school.

Posture is your body’s default setting—how your skeleton, joints, and muscles hang out when you’re not thinking about it. It’s your baseline stance, whether you’re scrolling your phone (hi tech neck!) or standing at the bus stop. Technically speaking, posture is “the alignment and positioning of the body in relation to gravity, centre of mass, and base of support” (Kendall et al., 2005).

There’s no such thing as perfect posture. Seriously. Research shows there’s a wide range of “normal” and even people with slouchy posture don’t always have pain (Claeys et al., 2020). It’s more about how you move out of it than whether you hold it like a statue.

What Is Alignment?

Alignment is like posture’s nerdier, more precise cousin. It’s all about how your bones stack and move in relation to one another—think ankles under knees under hips under shoulders under ears (unless you’ve evolved to store tension like a suitcase at airport security).

Proper alignment means joints are loaded evenly, muscles don’t have to overcompensate, and your body isn’t wasting energy trying to hold itself up like a wobbly Jenga tower.

Poor alignment? That’s when things get messy—hips rotate, spines twist, and you start moving like your skeleton’s playing a prank on you.

Why Are Posture and Alignment Important?

Because you want to move well, feel good, and stop sounding like a bowl of Rice Bubbles every time you bend over. Posture and alignment set the stage for everything from walking to weightlifting to just sitting comfortably for Netflix binges.

Misalignment leads to compensation. Compensation leads to dysfunction. Dysfunction invites pain. And pain? It’s your body’s version of a passive-aggressive Post-it note saying, “Please fix this before I explode.”

Studies link alignment with muscle activation, joint load, and movement efficiency (van Dieën et al., 2019). Basically, if things are in the right place, your body works smarter, not harder.

Why Movement and “Neutral” Is the Key

Here’s the tea: holding “good” posture all day is not the goal. Moving well between positions is. We don’t teach you to sit straight forever—we teach you to find your neutral and move from it.

Neutral is the zone where your body feels balanced and joints aren’t yelling at each other. It’s dynamic, not fixed. “Neutral posture” isn’t one shape, it’s your personalised zone of efficiency—where your system is free, not fighting gravity.

According to O’Sullivan (2012), moving through neutral reduces pain and improves function more effectively than static corrections. In other words: don’t freeze, flow.

Where Is Your Neutral?

Well, that depends. Neutral isn’t a postcode, it’s a pattern.

At The Body Lab, we help you feel your neutral—not just see it in a mirror. It might be when your pelvis untwists, your feet wake up, or your ribcage stops bossing your neck around.

Finding neutral is a process of unravelling:

• Where do you overwork?

• What’s not pulling its weight?

• Where’s your centre of mass living rent-free?

You can’t fix what you can’t feel—and that’s where we come in.

How We Uncover Your Posture and Alignment at The Body Lab

We don’t guess. We observe—how you stand, how you walk, how your joints stack and sway. We’re less “bend over and touch your toes” and more “let’s see what your talus is doing on heel strike.”

Our assessment includes:

✅ Full-body joint motion testing

✅ Gait analysis (yes, how you walk tells us everything)

✅ Rib, pelvis, and spine interactions

✅ Foot mechanics and weight-bearing strategies

✅ Centre of mass shifts and compensations

We map out the story your body is telling—usually involving a plot twist or two. And then we move you toward solutions.

What Makes Us Different?

Let’s just say we’re not your typical “shoulders back, chin tucked” crowd.

Here’s what sets us apart:

• We don’t chase symptoms – We decode the why behind them.

• We blend clinical biomechanics with whole-body awareness – because your neck pain might be a foot problem in disguise.

• We believe in self-healing through movement – Your body isn’t broken, it just needs better instructions.

• We teach you to feel change instantly – Not just hope it shows up after 12 weeks of clamshells.

As one client said:

“I thought I had bad posture. Turns out, I had bad awareness. Riccardo helped me find my body again—one joint at a time.”

In Summary

Posture isn’t about perfection. Alignment isn’t about rigidity.

It’s about discovering your neutral, reclaiming your movement, and ditching the postural police that live rent-free in your brain.
At The Body Lab, we don’t just “fix posture.” We re-educate movement from the ground up—starting with your feet, flowing through your spine, and landing in your brain. Ready to feel what true alignment feels like?

References

• Kendall FP, McCreary EK, Provance PG. Muscles: Testing and Function with Posture and Pain. 5th ed. Baltimore: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; 2005.

• Claeys K, Dankaerts W, Janssens L, et al. Altered trunk muscle recruitment during cross-legged sitting in people with recurrent low back pain. Man Ther. 2020;45:103110.

• van Dieën JH, Reeves NP, Kawchuk G, et al. Motor control changes in low-back pain: divergence in presentations and mechanisms. J Orthop Sports Phys Ther. 2019;49(6):370-379.

• O’Sullivan P. It’s time for change with the management of non-specific chronic low back pain. Br J Sports Med.2012;46(4):224–227.