Most people who walk through the doors at Kraken Fitness in North Burnaby have the same concern somewhere in the back of their mind: my posture is just broken. Years of sitting at a desk, driving, looking at a phone – and somewhere along the way they decided their body was permanently messed up.
It almost never is. What looks like “bad posture” is usually tightness in a few specific areas – your lats, your upper back, your ankles, or nerve tension running down the back of your legs. All of that is fixable. Here are three tests to figure out which one you’re dealing with.
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Why “Bad Posture” Usually Isn’t What You Think
People carry a lot of shame around their posture. They’ve been told to “stand up straight” their whole lives, and now they walk around convinced their spine is permanently damaged. When they see themselves in photos – rounded shoulders, forward head, the whole thing – it confirms what they already believed.
The reality is different. Most of what people call “bad posture” is mobility restriction. Tight lats. A stiff upper back. Restricted ankles. Or nerve tension running down the back of the legs that limits range of motion just as effectively as tight muscles do. None of these are permanent. They’re all things that respond to the right work.
The three tests below will tell you exactly what you’re dealing with. They won’t take long – the whole thing can be done in a few minutes. And the answers will point you toward specific areas to address, rather than leaving you with the vague sense that your body is just broken.
Test 1: The Wall Test
The wall test checks your upper back mobility, shoulder mobility, and lat tightness all at once – using nothing but a wall.
Setup: Stand about a foot away from the wall. Make contact at three points: the back of your hips, your mid back, and the back of your head. Keep all three touching.
The test: Extend your arms straight out in front of you, elbows locked, thumbs pointing up. From there, slowly raise your arms overhead and try to touch your thumbs to the wall – without any of those three contact points (hips, mid back, head) lifting off.
What it means: If your thumbs reach the wall with all three points still in contact, your upper back and shoulder mobility are in decent shape. If one or more contact points lifts off before your thumbs get there, you’ve got restriction somewhere in the chain – most commonly the lats, the upper back, or both.
The fix – the prayer stretch: Get on your knees in front of a bench. Place the backs of your elbows on the bench with your palms facing toward you. From there, sink your hips back while keeping your chest angled upward. You should feel a stretch through your lats and a release through your mid back. This is the tension that pulls you out of that overhead position. Hold it, let it open up, and repeat a few times.
This stretch takes a few minutes and addresses the exact restriction the wall test is looking for. If you’re failing the wall test consistently, running through the prayer stretch before any overhead work will make a noticeable difference over time.
Test 2: The Overhead Squat Test
The overhead squat test gives you a global picture of what’s happening in your body during movement – how your ankles, hips, upper back, and shoulders all work together.
Setup: Before you do this test, set up your phone to film. You want footage from the front, the side, and the rear. Do two to three reps from each angle so you have enough to look back at.
Stand shoulder width apart, feet pointing straight forward. Reach straight up overhead as high as you can go. From there, squat down as low as you comfortably can, then come back up.
How to read it – work bottom up:
Start at your feet. As you squat, do they turn out excessively or cave inward? Either can signal ankle restriction or hip mobility issues that are compensating downstream.
Move up to your knees. Do they track over your midfoot, or do they collapse in or bow out? Knees caving inward often point to weak hips or tightness through the inner thighs.
Switch to the side view and watch your arms. Do they stay in line with your ears as you squat, or do they drift forward? Arms coming forward during the squat almost always means tight lats and a stiff upper back – the same issue the wall test checks, just showing up in a loaded movement pattern.
Still on the side view: do your heels stay down, or do they lift as you sink into the squat? Heels coming up means tight ankles – and ankle restriction affects your knee tracking, hip position, and how much depth you can safely reach.
The overhead squat test doesn’t give you one answer. It gives you a map – a starting point for understanding where your movement is being limited and why.
Test 3: The Toe Touch Test
The toe touch test is simple: stand upright, keep your knees mostly straight, bend forward, and try to touch your toes.
If you can touch your toes with ease, your hamstring flexibility and posterior chain mobility are in a reasonable place. You’re done with this one.
If you can’t reach your toes, there’s a follow-up test that helps you understand why – and the answer matters, because the fix is different depending on what’s actually going on.
The nerve test:
Lie flat on your back. Lift one leg straight up with your knee fully extended and your toes pulled back toward your shin. You should feel a strong stretch on the back of your leg. From there, press your heel into your hands and resist hard – like you’re trying to push your leg back down – for about five seconds. Then release, relax, and let the leg drift slightly higher. Repeat this three times on the same leg.
Stand back up and try the toe touch again.
If you can reach noticeably further than before, the limiting factor wasn’t tight hamstring muscle fibers. It was nerve tension. The sciatic nerve and its branches run down the back of your legs, and when they’re under tension, they restrict your range of motion just as effectively as tight muscles do. The contract-relax sequence you just ran is a form of nerve mobilization that temporarily releases that tension.
This distinction actually matters. If you’ve been stretching your hamstrings aggressively for months with no improvement, nerve tension is likely the reason. Stretching harder won’t fix a nerve tension problem – it can make it worse. The approach is different.
If you try the test and your range doesn’t change much, muscle tightness is the more likely limiter – and a consistent hamstring stretching routine is the right approach.
Either way, now you know what you’re working with.
FAQ
What is the wall test for posture?
The wall test checks upper back mobility, shoulder mobility, and lat tightness. Stand a foot from a wall with three contact points – hips, mid back, and head. Raise your arms overhead with thumbs up and try to touch the wall without any contact point lifting off. If they lift, you have mobility restrictions to address in the lats or upper back.
What does the overhead squat test tell you?
The overhead squat test gives a full-body movement assessment. Analyzed bottom up, it reveals ankle restriction (heels lifting), knee tracking issues, hip mobility, and upper back or lat tightness (arms drifting forward during the squat). Film yourself from front, side, and rear to see the complete picture.
Why can’t I touch my toes even though I stretch regularly?
If regular hamstring stretching hasn’t improved your toe touch, nerve tension may be the limiting factor rather than muscle tightness. Try pressing your raised leg into your hands for 5 seconds, then relaxing and reaching deeper – repeat 3 times. If your range improves significantly after this, you’re dealing with nerve tension, not tight muscles.
Is bad posture permanent?
In most cases, no. What people call “bad posture” is usually mobility restriction – tight lats, stiff upper back, or limited ankle range – or nerve tension in the posterior chain. These respond to targeted work. Structural conditions like scoliosis are a different matter, but most everyday posture issues are addressable.
Do I need a trainer to fix my posture in Burnaby?
You can run these tests yourself, but a trainer helps you interpret the results and build a plan that actually addresses what you found. At Kraken Fitness in North Burnaby, a movement analysis is part of every new client’s assessment – it’s how the coaches build programs that work for each person’s specific restrictions rather than a generic template.
Ready to Start?
If you’re in North Burnaby and want a coach to run through these assessments with you and build a program around what they find, Kraken Fitness offers a free trial week. The onboarding process includes a movement analysis so your training is built around your body from day one.
About the Author
Josko is the Founder & CEO of Kraken Fitness in North Burnaby. He’s been coaching for over 10 years and now spends just as much time developing his coaching staff as he does coaching clients directly.
Brandon is the Co-Owner & COO of Kraken Fitness. He brings the kinesiology background to the team and leads Kraken’s movement assessment process for new clients.
[Brandon]
If you think your posture is broken, it’s probably not. But I’ll show you how to figure that out for yourself. The first test that you’re going to do is a wall test. And this is a very simple test because all you need is a wall. So, what you’re going to do to set up for this test is you’re going to step slightly away from the wall, maybe about a foot away. And you’re going to want to make sure there’s three contact points on the wall. It’s going to be the back side of your hips, your mid back, and the back side of your head. Now, from here, you’re going to keep your arms fully extended from the elbows and thumbs up. Then, from there, you’re going to extend all the way over top, and you’re going to try to touch your thumbs to the wall without having any of those three contact points come off the wall. Now, what this is going to test is the mobility of your upper back and your shoulders, and most often the tightness of your lats. So, if any of those three points come off, this is going to be something that you need to inspect and I’m going to show you how to release those areas.
[Brandon]
Now, one thing that you can help with releasing the upper back is doing a prayer stretch. And so, what you can do from here is you’re going to get down onto your knees. You’re going to place the back sides of your elbows on the bench like so. You’re going to place your palms facing towards yourself. And you’re going to sink back into your hips while keeping the angle of your chest upwards. Now, what this is going to do is release the lats as well as get extension and stretching through your mid back. And this is often something that stops you from getting into those overhead positions.
[Brandon]
The next test that you’ll want to do is an overhead squat test. And this test is going to give you a very big global picture of what’s going on in your body as you do this movement. So, the best way for you to do this is actually film yourself doing this from a front view, a side view, and a rear view. So, the way you’re going to set up for this test is you’re going to go shoulder width apart, feet in a forward position. Then, from there, you’re going to reach straight up above your head, as high as you can go. And from here, you’re going to drop into a squat as low and as comfortably as you can go, and come back up. You’ll most likely want to do two to three reps in each angle so you can get the best view of what’s going on.
[Brandon]
So, the best way to diagnose this is to go bottom up. And so, you’re going to look at your feet as you do the movement. So, as you go through the squat, are your feet turning out too much or are they caving in? Working your way back up, we can also look at the knees. Are they turning out too much or are they turning in relative to your midfoot? Now, from the side view, as you go down into your squat, are your arms staying in line with your ears, or are they coming forward? If they’re coming forward, this is going to be indicative of tight upper back and lats. Again, now from the side view, it’s going to be a very good way to take a look at your feet as well. So, if your heels come up off the floor, it’s most likely that you’re going to have very tight ankles.
[Brandon]
The last test you’re going to do is another simple one, and it’s going to be just the toe touch. So, from here, you’re going to be in an upright position, keeping your knees fairly locked. You’re going to bend down and just try to touch your toes. If you can touch your toes, you’re in a good spot. But if not, I’m going to show you another quick test to see if you can go further. So, if you failed the toe touch test, you’re going to want to check to see if this is more musculature holding you back or the nerves running through the back side of your leg.
[Brandon]
So, from here, what you’re going to do is you’re going to lay flat on your back. You’re going to stretch one leg up, keeping your knee fully extended and your toes pulled towards your knees. Now, from here, you should feel a very big stretch on the back side of your legs. And what we’re going to do here – you’re going to go as far as you can and you’re going to press your leg into your hands and try to flex as hard as you can for about five seconds. And then after that, you’re going to relax and go back up one more time. And you should notice that your leg is going to come up actually higher each time that you do this. So, you can repeat this for about three times.
[Brandon]
After you’ve done your hamstring stretch with a little bit of assistance, you’re going to jump back up into the toe touch test. And if you can reach further than you did before – just like Josko did here – that might mean that the nerves in the back side of your legs just need a little bit more relaxation than the actual musculature holding you back. So hopefully after you’ve done these tests, you realize that your posture isn’t actually broken. And if it still is or you’re still lost, click the link in the video.