How to Find Your Correct Sitting Posture

Understanding your body is an important part of learning Pilates.  For this demonstration, sit up tall in with your head, shoulders and rib cage directly over your hips.  If you do this against a wall, you should feel your hips, mid-back and head stacked in a line against the wall.  Now, wiggle around and feel the bones in your seat. In Pilates, these are referred to as your ‘sitz bones’.

First, let’s look at incorrect sitting posture.

Moving away from the wall for this next part, lean your body back of your sitz bones and feel as if you are falling backwards.  This is incorrect posture.

Now lean your torso forward of your sitz bones and feel that your whole upper body is forward of your sitz bones.  This is also incorrect posture.

Now sit directly on top of your sitz bones again, with your rib cage, shoulders and head stacked directly on top of each over your sitz bones.  If you look into a mirror from the side, they will all be in one line.  This is correct posture!

So why is it so hard to stay in that posture?  This is where Pilates comes in. Using Pilates, you strengthen the muscles of the core creating stability.  From there, you work inside-out strengthening small muscles around your joints and then moving outward to larger muscle groups.  All the while, you are lengthening and balancing the muscles in proper alignment to your newly stable core.

In the end are terrific gains: strength, flexibility and control.