Over the past several years, I have worked to find the diet and fitness habits that express the healthiest metabolism. And if you have heard me in one of our (Jeff Eckhouse and myself) Metabolic Fitness Recovery classes, or if you have read The Blood Code, you know there are some pretty basic principles to find the fitness program that works for you.

• Workout on an empty stomach
• Make it strenuous for you
• Vary your heart rate
• Use many muscle groups at once

Well, to get this last one done, you will need to engage good posture. I tend to say over and over again, “squeeze the gluts”. Trainer Jeff Eckhouse has a bit more sophisticated way of assessing your mechanics during exercise, but the end result should be the same. You are engaging your core—front and back—throughout each exercise.

Check out this article on ancestral posture by Esther Gokhale.

This is a meaningful topic for me, because I have, like many of you reading this, spent countless days in the past with back pain. I have a condition called lumbarization of S1. It means I have one extra lumbar vertebrae, but with this added flexibility comes a great deal of instability. People with this extra lumbar segment—which has no proper disc between it and S2, just disorganized cartilage—are prone to back pain throughout their lives. But that just means I have more skin in the game to get my fitness right for me. I changed my form and found the exercises that work best for me, and have experienced no back pain in the past 4 years. Your posture and form during exercise and during your day-to-day are wildly important.

Look for a future post from me—You will soon be able to HEY! It’S HERE! the Metabolic Fitness Recovery Program , the collaborative effort with Jeff Eckhouse and The Blood Code is ready for download. We are proud of the result and know it will be a valuable resource for so many of you – Take a look at the trailer and make your fitness count.

-RM