Why Your Back Hurts Even With Good Posture

Can your back hurt with good posture? It doesn’t make sense why it would especially if all we see on the internet are the memes reminding us of all the postural habits we need to fix.

Rounded shoulders, text neck, sitting posture, standing posture, sleeping posture.

So what happens when you have good posture yet still have lower back pain?

What are you supposed to do then?

In today’s episode, I cover a question I got in from a reader regarding constant low back pain even with good posture.

Can Good Posture Cause Back Pain?

I dive into this even more in today’s video but the short answer is yes.

There really isn’t much out there proving that just because we have good posture that our pain will go away.

As much as the fitness industry tries to remind us about the specific posture habits that we fail at daily there isn’t anything to really measure good or bad posture off of so how do you know when your posture is “good enough” to be pain-free?

Sure we can have metrics to follow or little charts we can stand against to point out our imperfections but are these imperfections the true cause of our pain or is that just the way God created us?

The perfect posture and back pain angle I want to cover in this post is the forced good posture.

This is where you the individual contract your muscles for an extended period of time in hopes of correcting the position of your body.

A good example of this is sitting at your desk job and contracting your back muscles to sit up straight then contracting your muscles in the upper back to draw your shoulders blades back and down then trying to maintain this position for hours while you work.

This leads to overworking muscle groups which leads to cramping, soreness, and fatigue which could lead to a whole host of floating pains and issues.

If you want to dive into this topic even more watch today’s video!

Why Does My Back Hurt When I Try To Have Good Posture?

In short, your back hurts more when trying to have good posture because you are more than likely overworking the muscles in your back from trying to maintain the constant muscle contraction.

A muscle is not designed to constantly be under contraction. Instead, the muscles in the body work together creating balance, stiffness, and support throughout the body.

So if you think about it, if you were to contract your quad muscle for a few hours without a break imagine the discomfort you would create from trying to maintain that contraction?

Instead, you want to build strength and endurance in the body through smart strength training.

Here is a free sample of one of my 7 Day Band And Bodyweight Workouts to try!

What Is The Best Posture For Your Back?

As much as we want to shoot for an ultimate goal whether it be weight loss, career, or even “better posture” this can in return trap us into thinking unless we maintain that posture we will always be in pain.

Where I tend to fall on this topic is building awareness around how you move sit and stand and while you do that build strength in these critical muscles to help nurture this better awareness and retrain the body to crave the better position we are looking for.

So when you’re looking for the best posture for your back pain think more about what position brings the most comfort to you. When you’re in pain usually this is the position that relieves the pain.

So there isn’t a perfect angle you’re striving for but more comfort and balance between the muscles in the front and back of the body.

Do Posture Braces Help With Back Pain?

This is a controversial topic for a number of good reasons.

Some say the brace helps make the mind-body connection to bring awareness to better posture. This in return is supposed to help us correct the posture for good.

Then there is the side that says the brace is only a crutch and will not fix anything unless action is taken to build smart strength with a better posture being the goal.