One of the focal points of my practice is helping people improve their posture.

Without good posture, spinal health is unachievable. With a baseline of poor posture, fitness exercises will just make things worse, by embedding distortions even more strongly into your system. You’re an injury waiting to happen.

Yet, identifying the characteristics of good posture (or, more generally, a good pattern of body use) is a challenge. Everyone is different, and everyone sits, stands and walks differently. There are even postural differences within the same person from moment to moment. Depending on the task you’re trying to accomplish, you might organize your standing or sitting posture quite differently. And your posture can shift based on your energy level, mood, or social situation.

What is good posture, anyway?

In my efforts to identify the characteristics of good posture, and to help people achieve it, I’ve found it useful to think about the various purposes that posture is designed to fulfill. What is the body trying to optimize? Or minimize?

If I frame the question this way, I can list four purposes that a “posture” might be trying to achieve:

1. Minimize energy expenditure; use as little muscle activation as possible

After all, why waste energy? “Relaxation”–which is generally viewed as a good thing–is often thought to be synonymous with avoiding any unnecessary energy expenditure. (Though, on the other hand, increasing your baseline metabolic rate – which you can do, for instance, just by fidgeting around – makes a difference in controlling body weight.)

2. Minimize wear and tear on the joints and connective tissues

Postural distortion can place an undue load on your joints. And, if your postural choices require that your body weight is supported (at least in part) by tension in your connective tissues, that stress can cause long term damage too.

3. Prepare for action

If you’re waiting to return your opponent’s tennis serve, you’ve got to be ready. Your hip joints and knees might be slightly bent. You might carry your weight on the front part of your feet. You’ve got to be able to move quickly to the front, back, right or left. You’re ready to anchor the weight of your lower body to transfer maximum force through your shoulder and arm.

Tennis may not be your game. But the same principle applies whatever action you’re engaged with, either in sports or in daily life. You’fre always using your body in one way or another–even ordinary daily life presents constantly shifting movement demands.

4. Express one’s mood, personality, or affiliation in a social situation

Posture, and body movement in general, is also a form of communication and self-expression. You don’t have to be an expert in reading body language: when you observe someone’s posture or movement, your brain nearly instantly takes stock of the person’s mood and energy level, their reaction to the current situation, whether they’re friend or foe, their social status, and perhaps their affiliation with a particular social group.

Action posture versus passive posture

Because of the overlapping demands that “posture” is trying to fulfill, there’s no one right way to stand or sit that’s applicable to every situation.

But my study of body mechanics has led me to develop a postural approach that meets two of these four goals. It minimizes wear and tear on the joints, and it primes us for action. I call it “action posture.”

The principles of action posture are straightforward, but most people aren’t used to it so it can require a learning curve before you’re comfortable with it.

Most often, I begin with the idea of standing with the weight of the rib cage balanced vertically over the pelvis.

You can learn about action posture for yourself. Stand sideways to a long mirror, with one hand over your chest and the other over the front of your ribcage. The two hands should be in the same vertical line.

The most common deviation from this plan is a passive pattern of posture in which the weight of the rib cage hangs too far back and the pelvis is a bit too forward. This requires less muscle activity, but creates a combination of other problems.

“Action posture” requires a low level of strategic muscle activation, particularly in the deeper-lying abdominal muscles, to control the relationship of the pelvis to the rib cage.

Check out my video – Stand Up Straight.

You may not always choose to activate yourself into “action posture.” But if you’ve become familiar with it, at least it becomes an option you can enact when it’s appropriate. If you haven’t built “action posture” into your repertory, you’ll have no choice but to slouch in a passive alignment.

Posture is already an important part of your life, whether you’re paying attention to it or not. Build your awareness and body engagement to get more out of life. Life isn’t passive.

Dr. Lavine has been an innovator in the use of movement and touch to promote health since 1981. He practices in New York City and Princeton, NJ.