Chapter 4 Why? And The Quagmire Of Standing
It's what we think we know that keeps us from learning ~ Claude Bernard
Dropped in mid-journey? Walk Straight is best experienced from the beginning.
“Why?” is one of the most important questions in the English language, and yet, as we age, we seem to use it far too sparingly. As children, we want to know everything with unbridled enthusiasm; no question is too big or too small. Yet, as we grow older, our desire to already know or understand often keeps us from asking. If we don’t ask, it lets us avoid the discomfort of whatever the answer might require. Over time, certainty starts to feel safer than curiosity. When it comes to our health, it behooves us to reclaim our childhood habits.
Approaching how we move with intentional questions, even when we think we know the answer, is crucial. In the last chapter, we looked at how “good form” is more of a vague cultural agreement that fragments the body rather than supporting its natural integration. To illustrate this minefield of misunderstanding, I asked Google a seemingly simple question: “How to stand up straight with good posture?”. On that day, the checklists from WebMD, the American Chiropractic Association, the Mayo Clinic, and the United States National Library of Medicine offered inconsistent advice. No surprise, but it’s telling. As you read each list, resist the temptation to skim, even if the cues are familiar. Instead, pause and observe how you would respond. Maybe even get on your feet and try it in real time. That’s where the real insight lives.
WebMD states:
Pretend you’re standing against a wall to measure your height.
Hold your head straight.
Tuck in your chin.
Your ears should be over the middle of your shoulders.
Stand with your shoulders back, knees straight, and belly tucked in.
Don't let your booty or hips stick out.
Straighten up so you feel like your head stretches toward the sky.
The American Chiropractic Association states:
Bear your weight primarily on the balls of your feet.
Keep your knees slightly bent.
Keep your feet about shoulder-width apart.
Let your arms hang naturally down the sides of the body.
Stand straight and tall with your shoulders pulled backward.
Tuck your stomach in.
Keep your head level - your earlobes should be in line with your shoulders. Do not push your head forward, backward, or to the side.
Shift your weight from your toes to your heels or one foot to the other, if you have to stand for a long time.
Mayo Clinic offers the “Wall Test”:
Stand so that the back of your head, your shoulder blades and your buttocks touch the wall, and your heels are 2 to 4 inches from the wall.
Put a flat hand behind the small of your back. You should be able to just barely slide your hand between your lower back and the wall for a correct lower back curve.
If there's too much space behind your lower back, draw your belly button toward your spine. This flattens the curve in your back and gently brings your lower back closer to the wall.
If there's too little space behind your lower back, arch your back just enough so that your hand can slide behind you.
Walk away from the wall while holding a proper posture. Then return to the wall to check whether you kept a correct posture.
The United States National Library of Medicine states:
Stand up straight and tall.
Keep your shoulders back.
Pull your stomach in.
Put your weight mostly on the balls of your feet.
Keep your head level.
Let your arms hang down naturally at your sides.
Keep your feet about shoulder-width apart.
From the get-go, these sources show that the only consistent feature of “good form” is how much the instructions vary. There’s both overlap and contradiction. The language is filled with cues that are open to interpretation, often vague, sometimes seemingly straightforward, yet unintentionally misleading and all too often, they’re the very cues that perpetuate dysfunctional movement. At the end of the day, it all comes down to the SOP, Standard Operating Procedure.
When developing a science experiment, the SOP is everything. Instructions such as “mix the ingredients” would never fly, as there are a plethora of ways ingredients can be mixed, and how they are mixed is crucial. There is a brilliant video of a father teaching his kids the concept of precise instructions by making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. If a PB&J sounds straightforward, look it up.
In many ways, standing efficiently is no different. But unlike in science labs, most people don’t know what the SOP is. Our collective instructions for posture are a broken chain of assumptions dressed up as expertise. Our culture has spent so much time influencing our mechanics, relying on assumptions, and using shortcuts that most guidelines don’t actually guide. There’s simply not enough shared foundational understanding. To illustrate, I’ll take each of the aforementioned directions, ask “why?”, and very briefly address the confusion each one invites.
First WebMD:
Pretend you’re standing against a wall to measure your height.
Why? It begins when we are children. Once we can stand on our own, routine visits to the pediatrician involve a stop on the scale and an encounter with the stadiometer or height rod. We are so excited to be growing, we reach our bodies as high as we can, as the nurse slides the horizontal measuring bar down until it touches our heads. We stretch our torsos, lift our chests, and chins, striving to claim another inch. And so it begins. Behaviors often learned and ingrained throughout our childhood pediatrician visits continue to influence our interpretation of standing at full height.
Hold your head straight - Tuck your chin.
Why? One can guess that the direction to “tuck the chin” is an attempt to elongate the neck and straighten the positioning of the head. Unfortunately, tucking the chin simply draws the jaw down, which shortens the muscles of the jaw and flexes the neck. Although this movement might give the illusion of a straighter neck or a functionally placed head, it is just that, an illusion. Tucking the chin is also regularly interpreted as nodding the head forward, dropping the chin down, or drawing the jaw back. None of these maneuvers promotes efficient posture or supportive head positioning.
Your ears should be over the middle of your shoulders.
Why? In optimal alignment, a plumb line runs from the center of the ear through the shoulder, hip, knee, and ankle. However, if the rest of the body isn’t aligned downstream, arbitrarily forcing the ears backward to match this ideal can compress the vertebrae and strain the muscles of the neck, chest, and shoulder girdle. This is a biggie right now as the forward head pattern, once reserved for adults, is now being seen in increasing numbers, even among very young children, due to prolonged phone and tablet use. (The good news? It’s absolutely possible to keep using our devices, even with our heads down, and avoid this issue. More on that later.)
Keep your feet about shoulder-width apart.
Why? Shoulder width is vague and arbitrary, yet it has become standard protocol. What part of the shoulder are we talking about? The inside where the arm connects to the body, or the outer edge of the arm? What if there’s a lot of bulky muscle? And why the shoulders at all? Shoulder-to-pelvis proportions vary so much from person to person that using shoulder width as a universal standard just doesn’t hold up. The shoulders aren’t a useful landmark for placing the feet in a way that supports the joints, spine, and intrinsic balance. We’ll look more closely at how to find foot placement that works with your structure in a later chapter, but it starts by letting go of this particular rule of thumb.
Don't let your booty or hips stick out.
Why? Rule number one: Don’t confuse what the booty looks like on the outside with what is happening on the inside. Spine placement and the relationship between the pelvis and legs can be completely camouflaged by musculature. That said, what if the booty is sticking out? What then? Although the writer is probably referring to the orientation of the pelvis, how is a layman to know this? What if you were born with a pronounced “booty” and that’s why it is sticking out? Typically, the response to the direction “Don’t let your booty or hips stick out” is tucking the booty. The problem is tucking the booty is NOT the answer! The intersection of the thigh bones and pelvis is a complex structure. Never tuck the booty to try and align the pelvis or reduce the curve in the lower spine. Why? As I touched on in the last chapter, there are repercussions! I promise to come back to this in greater depth later on! Suffice it to say, this direction is massively oversimplified and I would go so far as to say, ultimately damaging. I don’t even know what “sticking hips out” means!
Straighten up so you feel like your head stretches toward the sky.
Why? This one has a lot in common with its siblings, elongate, lengthen from the crown of the head, and claim your height. They all sound good and give a nice visual. But they’re super short on details. We all perceive our heads differently. In practice, most people’s awareness of their head lives in the chin or where they perceive it according to their face and eyes. So instead of a consistent response, you get a range: stretching the head up from the sides of the neck, lifting the chin, or raising the chest and torso. Same cue. Multiple interpretations. Wildly different outcomes.
Confused? Let’s see if the American Chiropractic Association (ACA) can help:
Bear your weight primarily on the balls of your feet.
Why? Arbitrarily emphasizing weight distribution on the front of the feet undermines the body’s intrinsic engineering. Our feet have three arches anchored by bony structures on all four corners that function as the foundation of our skeleton. When our weight is primarily on the balls of our feet rather than equally distributed on top of all four corners over the main arch, compensations will occur. If the knees are prone to hyperextension, they most likely hyperextend. Follow these instructions, and you’ll certainly need a chiropractor. Next?
Keep your knees slightly bent.
Why? Hmmm, at the risk of being snarky, this cue is probably to try to offset the hyperextension that is happening because your weight is primarily on the balls of your toes. So no and no. The knees are not meant to be bent when we are standing. Why? Because when our legs are functionally straight on top of our feet and directly under our pelvis, there is flow between the lower extremities and the torso. In the majority of cases, when the knees are hyper-extended or bent, it is compensation for inhibited alignment or impeded joints.
Keep your feet about shoulder-width apart. The ACA and WebMD agree on this one.
Let your arms hang naturally down the sides of the body.
Does this require a why? Unfortunately, yes, this direction is not as obvious as it appears. True, this sounds pretty straightforward, except that most people’s arms no longer hang down by their sides the way that nature intended. Instead, their arms hang down according to the current relationship between the shoulder girdle, neck, spine, and torso. Hence why there are so many rotator cuff, neck, elbow, and wrist issues. According to a 2006 study in the American Journal of Orthopedics by Meislin, Stitik, and Sperling, in 2000, the direct costs for the treatment of shoulder dysfunction in the United States totaled $7 billion. 7 billion 20 years ago!
Stand straight and tall with your shoulders pulled backward.
Why? To start, the original question asked how to “stand up straight.” So, including “stand straight” in the answer is not helpful. The real doozy, however, is the advice, “shoulders pulled backward”. Pulling your shoulders backward inhibits the innate systems of stability and strength in the back, shoulder girdle, and spine. I know we have heard it from everyone’s Mom, Grandma, Dad, General, Teacher … and as it turns out, the American Chiropractic Association says it too, but it is wrong! How damaging it is depends on the alignment of the arm bones on the shoulder girdle and ribcage, how tight the chest is, the musculature, and how the spine is positioned. There is so much here to unpack, so we will revisit it in a future chapter with additional context. In the meantime, just say no.
Tuck your stomach in.
Why? What does that mean? Let’s start with stomach. I’m just going to go out on a limb and assume that when they used the word stomach they did not intend to instruct someone to tuck in the left side of the body under the heart, even though that’s where the stomach lives. It does not make any sense to me that a medical entity would refer to the glutes as booty, yet call a region recognized by a plethora of nicknames by the name of an anatomical organ that isn’t located in the area they are describing. I imagine what they meant was the abdomen, so the direction becomes, “Tuck your abdomen in”. So now that we are clear where they’re talking about, what do they mean by it? From my experience, tuck is a shorten and squeeze word. When someone is asked to “tuck” in their belly or abdomen, they shorten the muscles around the pubic bone up towards the waistline. Sometimes they only use the abdominals. Usually, it’s a combination of the abdominals, hip flexors, and often the booty, too, for good measure. Tucking in the abdomen does not efficiently support the spine; it just compresses what’s behind it. When we are standing, planking, or essentially in any position where our body is in its long form, it is best to avoid movements that shorten and instead embrace length. Again, this is a taster, more on that later.
Keep your head level - your earlobes should be in line with your shoulders. Do not push your head forward, backward, or to the side. We have some overlap again between the ACA and WebMD.
I appreciate the ACA’s guidance not to push the head in any direction. But their instructions say, “Don’t push…” right after telling us the earlobes should be over the shoulders. It’s a good example of how hard it is to explain something that seems like it should be obvious. Why shouldn’t the head be pushed anywhere? Because trying to force it into position without considering how it connects to the rest of the body creates a ripple effect. And while “keep your head level” sounds helpful, it’s not a complete instruction. It doesn’t take into account where the head is sitting on the spine to begin with. This is why simple cues so often fall short. The body isn’t a stack of isolated parts; it’s a whole system. And that’s the shift we’re making in this book: from isolated fixes to integrated understanding.
Shift your weight from your toes to your heels, or one foot to the other, if you have to stand for a long time.
Why? I’m a proponent of staying active and present in our bodies and feet. However, that is a different concept than implying that our body requires shifting weight around our feet to maintain standing for long periods of time. That said, if you’re following the ACA’s directions and your weight is primarily on your toes with your knees bent, you’re probably going to want to be shifting around a lot.
Then there is Mayo Clinic’s “Wall Test”:
The Wall Test is another perfect example of how medicine’s current approach can lead to confusion. The entire “Wall Test” depends on a specific skeletal length, proportions, curves, and muscle development. However, we do not all share the same proportions. Therefore, this test is completely arbitrary. A prominent or petite derriere is all it takes to skew the results. The focus should be on what is happening inside the body, not its outer appearance or measurements. I’m totally disappointed, Mayo Clinic.
Now on to the United States National Library of Medicine…
Stand up straight and tall
Keep your shoulders back
Pull your stomach in
Put your weight mostly on the balls of your feet
Keep your head level
Let your arms hang down naturally at your sides
Keep your feet about shoulder-width apart
Unfortunately, nothing new or helpful from the United States National Library of Medicine. This issue goes straight to the top of the food chain. Houston, we most definitely have a problem.
Although the previous exercise may seem repetitive, the point is to drill down on how messaging about posture and movement has become so familiar, so widely accepted, that we respond automatically, often reflexively, and our bodies comply in the fastest, easiest way they know how. The danger isn’t just bad advice; it’s how familiar advice bypasses our scrutiny. Language that sounds helpful often slips under the radar, quietly reinforcing dysfunction.
If you’re a visual person, take a moment to watch any online fitness class. You’ll likely see a room full of people following the same cue, but look closer, and you’ll notice how differently each person moves. This isn’t just personal variation; it’s a breakdown in communication. Muscles and bones respond according to their current defaults, each person filling in the blanks based on habit, tension, or compensation. The result? Everyone is “doing it right” in theory, but very few are actually benefiting in the way they believe.
Now, you might be thinking this would be the perfect time to offer up what TO do, since I’ve been harping on what NOT to do. But given that we’ve just observed how directions without laying groundwork, some understanding, and context are riddled with pitfalls, that would miss the point. Even if it doesn’t feel like progress yet, recognizing the limits of familiar language and how we respond to it is an essential first step.
What comes next isn’t about rushing toward a fix; it’s about learning to see with fresh eyes. I invite you to look again at things you may already know, but have never considered relevant to your day-to-day relationship with your body. There’s so much hiding in plain sight, quietly shaping how we move, feel, and function. And so, we return to the question we started with: Why? Why do we move the way we do? Why do we follow cues that don’t serve us? Why do we stop asking? Reclaiming that question, honestly, openly, and without shame, is where change begins. Maybe it’s time to be a little more like the kids we once were, unafraid to ask, uninterested in pretending we already know, and curious enough to dig deeper. Because when it comes to our bodies, “Why?” might just be the most powerful tool we’ve got. And when we start asking “why?” again, not just once, but again and again, we reclaim our agency. We loosen the grip of habits and assumptions. And from there, real, lasting change becomes possible.
Do any of these cues resonate with you? If so, drop down to the comments and share your experience! XxD
Sometimes, all it takes is a shift in perspective or a nugget of information considered in a new light to spark the ah-ha moment that changes everything!
Totally remember going heel to heel with all my cousins to see who was taller! Loads of head nodding there.