Heart of Motion
The Heart of Motion Podcast is an exploration of the heart, soul and science of movement - and what it means in our lives.
Movement connects us more deeply to ourselves, to our bodies and to the things and people that are most important to us. Beyond a fitness routine, why do you move? And what moves you? When we can look past the hamster wheel of ''fitness" - we start to realize that when we really live the lives of our bodies - life can be a whole lot more fulfilling, and a whole lot more fun!
Host Susannah Steers is your guide on a quest to understand how we can move better, feel better in our bodies and connect more deeply to our people and the world around us. Join her for some conversation, interviews with experts, and conversations with everyday people about what movement means to them. You might just find movement feels a little different on the other side...
Heart of Motion
Why Good Posture is More than Just Looking Good
Have you ever considered that the way you stand and sit could be influencing everything from your aches and pains to your energy levels to your risk of chronic disease? Forget what you thought you knew about "standing up straight"—posture is far more dynamic and influential than most of us realize.
I'm diving deep into our body's relationship with gravity and movement to reveal how posture acts as a continuous, adaptive process rather than a static position.
Whether you're dealing with chronic pain, seeking better athletic performance, or simply want more energy throughout your day, understanding posture as a dynamic system offers powerful insights for improving your health. Listen for practical strategies to enhance your body awareness and create balanced, efficient movement patterns that support your overall wellbeing. Your body has a story to tell—are you ready to listen?
Heart of Motion Podcast host Susannah Steers is a Pilates & Integrated Movement Specialist and owner of Moving Spirit Pilates in North Vancouver, BC. She is passionate about movement, about connections and about life.
Through movement teaching, speaking, and facilitating workshops, she supports people in creating movement practices that promote fitness from the inside out. She loves building community, and participating in multi-disciplinary collaborations.
Along with her friend and colleague Gillian McCormick, Susannah also co-hosts The Small Conversations for a Better World podcast – an interview based podcast dedicated to promoting the kind of conversations about health that can spark positive change in individuals, families, communities and across the globe.
Social Media Links:
Moving Spirit Pilates Instagram
Moving Spirit Pilates Facebook
Susannah Steers Instagram
Welcome to the Heart of Motion podcast. I'm Susanna Steers and I'll be your host as we explore the heart, soul and science of movement as a pathway to more active, vibrant and connected living. Nothing happens until something moves, so let's get started. Today, I want to explore with you one of the most fundamental yet often misunderstood aspects of our physical lives, and that's posture. As a Pilates and integrated movement specialist, I've seen firsthand how posture impacts not just our movement and physical health, but also our energy levels and our overall well-being. Today, we're going to dive into that dynamic world of posture and we're going to uncover some perhaps surprising insights along the way.
Susannah Steers:For years, we've been told that good posture is about standing up straight with your shoulders back and your chest out. For many people, posture is kind of a static concept, something to hold on to to create a pleasing aesthetic, but the truth is posture is anything but static. Our bodies are designed to move and our posture changes with every step, every breath and every movement. We're constantly balancing the structure of the human body against the forces of gravity, load and velocity. Posture is actually a very dynamic process, constantly shifting and moving to create the best possible conditions in your body for optimum support and motion. The latest research emphasizes that it's not about achieving a perfect aesthetic, but about maintaining a balanced and adaptable body. A 2025 article in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health defines it this way Posture can be described as any position adopted to maintain balance with maximal stability, using minimal energy and avoiding overloading anatomical structures. Posture results from a complex relationship between the neuromotor and biomechanical systems in the body and is under the continuous control of the central nervous system, aiming to provide postural alignment and balance, enabling the maintenance of a stable and upright position against gravity.
Susannah Steers:Now I've experienced this evolving nature of posture myself. As a young dancer and an athlete, the demands on my body were very different than they were as I shifted from performance to a career as a Pilates teacher. Pregnancy and motherhood brought new challenges to my posture, and now, as I experience menopause, I'm noticing changes again. I've learned over time that it's a journey and not a destination. Early in my career, I figured that there were hard and fast rules around what correct posture was and how to achieve it. Now I recognize that every body has a story and that each individual will have a different path to what optimal posture looks like for them.
Susannah Steers:Let's talk about the spine for a minute, since that's often where we look first when we're talking about posture. There are three natural curves to the spine the cervical curve in your neck, the thoracic curve of the rib cage, the lumbar curve of the lower back and the sacral curve, which is the lowest part of the spine and kind of sits within the two halves of the pelvis. These curves work together to distribute weight evenly and facilitate movement. Now the curve of your neck is a little bit concave, while the curve of your thoracic spine is convex. Your lower back has a concave curvature and the sacrum has a convex one. These curves have evolved over thousands of years of bipedal human motion to give a certain buoyancy to the body. They balance each other out and act effectively like a kind of spring. The collective curves absorb and transmit vertical forces, rotational forces and other directional loads at play on the body as it stands and moves through space. Maintaining these curves to the best of our ability is important for good posture and efficient movement. It keeps the spinal spring kind of spry.
Susannah Steers:When these curves are out of balance it can lead to discomfort, challenging movement patterns and an increased risk of injury. Anybody out there dealing with scoliosis, a condition that involves unusual lateral curves of the spine, has likely experienced some of these challenges. A mild scoliosis may not be noticeable at all, either to the eye or to a person's experience of living in their body. Bigger curves people can have a hard time developing uniform strength and mobility in their bodies, making it harder to stabilize and support their structure and motion, which can lead to things like chronic pain and injury. A significant scoliosis can have a profound effect on the function of vital organs. They get kind of squished around changing the pressure balance in the body and other working relationships for the function of the organs.
Susannah Steers:Sometimes injuries accumulated over time can affect our posture. A few years ago I discovered that I had five old healed fractures in my spine that I didn't know about, and while the fractures themselves, surprisingly, didn't seem to cause me any pain or discomfort at the time, the resulting challenges to my movement and my breath, especially after childbirth and into menopause, were significant. It was only after years of trying to figure out some personal movement issues that I finally got the images revealing the structural problem underlying my situation. I had an interesting curve in my spine, but even without a pathology, it's often our habits that contribute to poor posture. Prolonged sitting in front of a screen is likely the most famous one Flexed hips, a slouched spine, exaggerated spinal curves with the head kind of punched forward and the neck overextended. Maybe your low back is either hyperextended or overflexed.
Susannah Steers:If you're chronically sitting this way, you might be surprised at how challenging it is to move well, even if you're up and doing physical activity every day after work. Just look at one element of this. In an ideal posture, the considerable weight of your head is balanced easily over the spine on top of the springy curves of the spinal column, a little like a balloon on a stick. When the spinal curves are altered somehow and the typical sitting at the computer posture is a prime example then the head will often fall forward of the midline of the spine, where it becomes much harder to support. Try this Imagine holding a 10-pound bowling ball in your one hand, close to your body. It's heavy enough, but not unmanageable right Now. Imagine extending your arm so that you're holding that same 10-pound bowling ball way out away from you. What do you think? Would that be a little harder to support? Of course it would. The further the head moves away from your midline, the heavier it feels and the harder the rest of your body has to work to support it. When it's sitting too far forward of the midline, that 10 to 12 pound bowling ball of a head could effectively feel like it weighs 20 or 30 pounds instead, which would mean you're expending a heck of a lot of energy simply trying to hold up the weight of your head, and that becomes a functional problem, not just an aesthetic one.
Susannah Steers:How many people do you know working at a desk complain of neck and shoulder pain? This is the kind of thing we get used to. Over time, our bodies adapt to inefficient postures and find ways to help us feel normal inside of them. We don't always notice how dysfunctional they are because our bodies get so darn good at adapting to the things that we do often. But let's say you then take your slouchy computer posture that your body's found a way to normalize onto your mountain bike or into lifting weights or some other activity. Your body is primed to support itself in a way that it's gotten used to and it may get in the way of feeling great on your bike or in the gym or messing around with the kids in the yard, and, more often than not, if you've got a coach. The coach may not point out that postural piece as an important consideration when you're working on your technique and it all starts to add up over time.
Susannah Steers:In Pilates we emphasize support for these spinal curves and other things through centering core engagement, balanced muscle development and as full a range of motion as possible. By strengthening your core and improving your stability and your mobility, you can maintain better posture and reduce the strain on all your joints. I think that's what drew me to Pilates in the first place. It made me a better athlete and it helped me manage all kinds of structural challenges over the course of my lifetime. Now, strangely enough, I'm not someone who loves fitness as an activity in and of itself. I love movement and Pilates helps me move better, which helps me do the things I love to do as fully as I want to do them, and that brings me to fitness. When it's done well, pilates can be a great way to clean up and support your best posture.
Susannah Steers:Just saying Posture affects more than just our physical activities, though. It has an impact on our overall health, energy levels and emotional well-being too. Good posture can improve respiratory function, increase energy efficiency and enhance cognitive clarity. Conversely, poor posture can lead to fatigue, decreased lung capacity and even mood changes. I touched earlier on how posture can affect your breathing. If you're someone who's always slouching, then the respiratory diaphragm your main breathing muscle, might not work as well as it could. The diaphragm needs to have a really good vertical excursion inside your ribcage, a little like the action of a piston, to properly expand and deflate your lungs. If your upper body is slouched forward over your lower body all the time, then your posture may be preventing that vertical excursion and impairing your breathing.
Susannah Steers:And in the body, breathing is job one. It is the most important thing. So if the main breathing mechanism isn't able to do its thing well, then all kinds of other muscles will jump in to help to make sure you get the breath you need to survive. Neck muscles, shoulder muscles, back muscles all kinds of different muscles and others just want to help. We'll do whatever they have to do to help you breathe. These helpers are valiant in their efforts, but they just can't do the job nearly as well as the primary musculature responsible. Not only does respiration become less efficient, but all those helping muscles end up doing their own jobs less effectively too.
Susannah Steers:I think it's fascinating to recognize that cardiovascular function and the very coordination of our movement can be so intricately linked in ways that we really don't think about most of the time. If we know that posture can affect breathing in such a big way, we have to look at the possibility that other functions might be affected too. Bad posture can influence our circulation, restricting blood flow and oxygen delivery to the brain, causing brain fog and headaches and cognitive issues. Now the circulatory system has the heart to keep pumping blood through the body. The lymphatic system, on the other hand, requires movement to function well. The lymphatic system is part of your immune system and it helps keep body fluid levels in balance and helps defend against infection. And if parts of the body aren't moving well, due to either underactive or overactive musculature, the fluids in our body may stagnate, and that can cause everything from swelling to fatigue, to stiff joints, skin changes and aches and pains. Recent studies have shown that maintaining proper posture can actually reduce the risk of chronic diseases by improving circulation and reducing inflammation. That kind of blows my mind that how you stand and sit can change your risk of chronic disease.
Susannah Steers:Okay, let's get back to movement for a minute. I talk about patterns a lot on this podcast, and movement patterns are usually at the top of the list. Even though most people think of posture as a static thing, postural patterns are movement patterns. I keep coming back to the idea that movement is everywhere. The more we can tune in to the different movement potentials in our bodies, beyond the stuff we typically attribute to fitness and physical activity, and attend to the quality of that movement, the healthier we can be. Now, dive that deep may not be everybody's jam, and where that's true, I think you can lean into the idea that the more you move your body in a whole bunch of different ways, balancing out the stresses on your system, and if you pay attention to your postural habits, those things alone can improve your health and overall well-being. So you know, done At Moving Spirit Pilates, we have a saying how you move matters, and if I could distill that down, what we mean by that is that good posture and movement patterns typically lead to easier, more efficient movement.
Susannah Steers:Poor posture increases your risk of injury because your body has to compensate for imbalances by altering movement patterns, which can lead to strained muscles and joints and overuse injuries. All of that can result in inflammation as the body tries to heal these overworked tissues, potentially aggravating conditions like osteoarthritis and accelerating joint deterioration. Your posture and how you move are not just controlled by your musculoskeletal system. There are other forces at play. Our definition from earlier identified that posture is under the continuous control of the central nervous system. That becomes important, I think, when we start to think about how we manage emotions and stress and their effects on our bodies and minds.
Susannah Steers:Do you remember, a number of years ago, the work of Amy Cuddy? She was a social psychologist who became quite popular in certain circles. She created a number of different kinds of power poses that, she said, highlighted the impact of body language on things like confidence and success, and one of these power poses was called the Wonder Woman pose. Here's how it worked. Feel free to stand up and give this a try for yourself and see if you experience a similar sense of power. All right, you're going to stand tall with your feet about shoulder width apart, really grounded into your feet. Place your hands on your hips, pull your shoulders back, lift your chest, create an open and confident posture, tilt your chin slightly upward. You hold this pose for a few minutes and truly feel the impact on your confidence. What do you notice? Studies suggest that holding power poses like the Wonder Woman can influence your hormone levels, potentially leading to increased testosterone and decreased cortisol, which is the stress hormone, through the nervous system.
Susannah Steers:Our posture can positively or negatively affect our emotional state. I think Amy Cuddy's work seems like a way to kind of hack that system by borrowing a strong, confident posture and feeling all those good things as you stand in the pose for a while, and hopefully those feelings stick with you for longer than a few minutes. We can often tell how someone is feeling, though, can't we, by the way they stand and move around. Typically, we associate more upright postures as being more positive, upbeat, strong and confident, and when we see a slouched posture, we often think of that as being a little more unhappy, uncomfortable or less confident. It's a two-way street Posture affects emotion and emotion affects posture.
Susannah Steers:Years ago I discovered and became fascinated with the work of Stanley Kellerman, who was an American body psychotherapist and a writer and the founder of formative psychology. His work rested on the idea that the physical human shape is correlated with emotional and psychological reality. Quite literally, that feeling follows form. Among my favorite of his books was an edition called Emotional Anatomy, which presented in depth how sadness, anger, fear and other emotions are physiologically organized. It was a fascinating read full of all kinds of great pictures, and it's been interesting to watch over the course of my career. You can kind of see some of those postures and people's emotional realities. There's something to it.
Susannah Steers:Coming back to the nervous system, though, we can talk about the effects of posture on the vagus nerve, which you may have heard about. It's having a bit of a moment these days. The vagus nerve is a critical part of your parasympathetic nervous system, or the rest and digest part which calms you and promotes relaxation. This nerve is involved in regulating heart rate, digestion and mood, and research has shown that slumped postures can decrease vagal tone, which is linked to increased stress and negative emotions. We could drill way down into the physiology of all this, but really you've likely felt it yourself already. Think about how much better you feel after you've been sitting at your desk or doing sedentary things and you get up and go for a walk outside. You breathe better, your outlook improves In just a few short minutes. You feel better.
Susannah Steers:After years of movement work, I've seen how easy it is to focus on superficial corrections, like using posture correctors of various kinds or quick boot camp style fixes without addressing the underlying issues. A temporary fix is just that. It might feel good for a short time, but a quick, superficial solution like posture correctors can sometimes create a dependency and weaken postural muscles over time. It's crucial to make sure you get at the root causes of poor posture, such as structural misalignments or emotional issues. We can use those tools as crutches to help us when we need it, but we want to get back to as much full support of our own systems as we can. So how do we do that? What do we do? We can keep it simple or we can dive deep. Pick your pleasure.
Susannah Steers:Here are a few fairly practical tips. First, one's pretty obvious Stay active. Regular movement helps maintain flexibility and strength, essential for good posture. Do what you can to vary your routines and move in as many different planes of motion as you can, in as big a range of motion as you can. Mindful movement can be a great way to improve posture. Of course, I like Pilates because it emphasizes body awareness, it improves core function and really promotes balanced musculature. At my studio, moving Spirit, we offer personalized programs tailored to your specific needs, whether you're an athlete or recovering from illness, or simply looking to improve your movement and overall health.
Susannah Steers:Vary your positions. Avoid prolonged sitting or standing by changing positions frequently throughout the day, at least every 30 minutes or so. Shift positions, get up, walk around, change it up, breathe deeply Really good breathing can help relax muscles and improve your posture overall. Check back to a previous episode. We did all about breathing. We'll touch on some of the stuff that we've already talked about here today. The other one is monitor and learn to regulate your emotions. Spending a little time figuring out what sets you off and how it sets you off, and what you can do to kind of balance things out a little bit, can be really helpful. So you see, posture is not just about standing up straight. It's about creating a dynamic balance that supports efficient movement and overall well-being.
Susannah Steers:As I reflect on my own journey with posture, I realize how it has evolved over time. My posture has shifted and changed significantly over the years. What I've learned is that it's not just about achieving a perfect posture, but about understanding and addressing the underlying factors that influence it, whether it's physical changes or emotional stress. Recognizing these factors is key to making lasting improvements. Get to know yourself, your posture and your movement and you'll begin to feel better in your mind, in your body and in your spirit. When you improve your posture, you reduce your injury risk, improve your health and you promote active aging too. Remember you matter and how you move matters. Every movement is an opportunity to improve your posture and your health and connect to yourself on a much deeper level. Thanks so much for joining me today. We'll see you next time. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Subscribe and, if you love what you heard, leave a five-star review and tell people what you enjoyed most. Join me here again in a couple of weeks. For now, let's get moving.
