Hello. I wasn’t sure if this was the right sub-forum. To get to the point:
A bad posture will hide your gains in the gym. My posture isn’t perfect. Does anybody have any tips on how that can be improved?
Yep, posture is going to be one or more of rounded shoulders, neck forward, pelvis tilted.
You pick which one is you, you work out what’s causing the issue (eg. Weak ass.glutes) you do correction exercises to strengthen the weak muscles and you maintain good posture for as long as possible throughout the day (you can buy things to help with this but not sure of the efficacy of these)
Then you do this for many months.
It’s a good question, to be fair. I think most people who lift partly for aesthetics could pay more attention to posture as a way to look better (and move better).
Posture is a daily skill as much as it’s about strengthen certain muscles. Being actively conscious throughout the day to deliberately catch and correct your posture will also go a long way. Pretend you’re wearing a cape and stand/walk so it can flow behind you.
Training the upper back and lower/mid traps are also overlooked, so face pulls (especially with a long pause at peak contraction) and band-pull aparts are the simplest.
This is a great article talking about the boring, un-fun, effective drills that work underlying postural muscles:
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I recently bought Donnie Thompson’s Bowtie (Formal) and it’s really nice. It forces good posture while wearing it and engrains good habits. I liked it so much that I bought the Casual one as well so I could wear it for longer periods of time (the Formal one is a bit much for anything over an hour… for me anyway). My shoulder feels a lot better, which is actually the reason I wanted to try it initially.
Thank you. Great article. 
I’ll add: hit your back hard, from all angles. Going fairly heavy on rear delts really helps also
If work at desk/office most of the day, really look at your setup -chair height, how far away laptop is, mouse position, avoiding slumping if tired etc etc
Standing up and walking around for 30 secs every hour also important
Old thread resurrection time…
I’ve had horrible posture for as long as I can remember. When I was a wee lad I was chubby and hated my man tits and stayed rounded forward so my boobies wouldn’t look as juicy. Fast forward 15 years and I still have a nice set of tits and horrible posture 
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Questions:
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Do you still enjoy this product? Think the casual bow tie could be worn daily without it being obvious I’m wearing something?
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Should I check what type of posture issues prior to ordering?
I still wear both daily; I wear the formal one while I’m getting ready for work in the morning and in the car on the way to work (and on the way home). It helps set my thoracic spine properly for the upcoming day. I wear the casual one when sitting while I’m at home, especially if it’s a bad day for my shoulder.
Since I started wearing these regularly, I have been able to bench pain-free for the first time in about 2 years, and (more importantly, since I hate benching) OH pressing feels much better.
Keep in mind that it’s not a cure-all; you still need to instill good habits, work on mobility, and strengthen the correct muscles to fix your posture.
It has straps on it to aid in getting it into the desired position on your body, and these straps will protrude out enough that it will not be hidden completely. But does that matter? Unless you’re dealing directly with the public/customers, no one will care that you’re wearing it (nor should they… It’s none of their business). People wear knee braces and such when they need to, and this is no different.
Thanks for the reply man. I have horrible shoulder mobility and I think suffer from tight pec/bicep muscles from never stretching them. I’ve been making a conscious effort to stretch them daily as well as hold a better posture during the day. I’ve also started making sure my meager back days look less meager than my chest days as well as giving the rear delts some extra attention. Thinking this device can help greatly on top of that.
Sure thing! You might already be doing this, but hanging really helps open up the shoulders. I use my pullup bar, but anything will work. While hanging, I gently rotate my torso to really help open up my shoulders. This should help with your posture as well.
When you are able to do so, front squats (proper front rack, not with arms crossed) help maintain thoracic spine and shoulder mobility. I do those once every week.
I actually did some hanging left raises the other day and it only felt good if I held almost 1/4 of the bottom half of a pull up. Do you just dead hang with shoulders relaxed?
Not only do I not have the shoulder mobility for normal front squat, but I’ve broken both arms at the wrist and have played and screws and limited mobility with my wrists. I can’t even curl a straight bar, not even close. So that may be out of the question.
A month later, and I’ve seen a lot of improvements. I don’t know which of the of the points below had the biggest impact, but here’s what I’ve done:
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Isolating my hamstrings and working them harder. I pack a lot of muscle in my back, but my legs have never been anything special
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Stretching more. This is underrated!
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Running. Previously, my cardio would be biking exclusively. While I still don’t enjoy running per se, I can at least tolerate it after running for a month
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I do both dead hangs and scapular pullups, which is just a retraction of the scapulae (essentially the very first portion of a full pullup).
Wow, I’m sorry to hear that man, that’s a hell of an injury. The shoulder mobility comes with time, but the lack of wrist mobility sounds like it might eliminate front squats from being an option for you.
@thufirhawat that’s great to hear! I have also been hammering my hamstrings lately; recently I was finally able to do unassisted BW reps with my GHD. This has helped my lower back issues quite a bit.
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