5 things to know before you buy a posture vest
Dave and Lisa Stay Fit
By Dave
I'm 35 and I've been at a desk since I was twenty-two. I wasn't looking for any of this. My girlfriend took a photo of me at a barbecue in June and the guy standing in it looked ten years older than I am.
That turned into three weeks of reading and a fair bit of money spent before I got it right. Here's what I'd tell anyone before they buy one.
1. You should be able to see it working on day one
A lot of these come with instructions to wear them twenty minutes a day and build up slowly. Six weeks before you know whether it's doing anything.
Nobody sticks to that. I didn't.
A compression vest is different. You put it on, stand in front of a mirror, and you can see whether your shoulders are sitting differently. Four seconds, no waiting, nothing to take on faith.
I'll admit I'd assumed thirteen years of sitting like that was baked in by now. That turned out to be the wrong question. It isn't undoing anything, it's holding your shoulders open while you've got it on. How long you've been at it doesn't come into it.
Try it in a mirror the day it arrives. If nothing's different, send it back.
2. The muscle question only applies to braces
This nearly stopped me buying anything at all. You read it everywhere:
“Posture correctors just do the work for your muscles so they get even weaker over time.”
It took me a while to work out that's a fair point about one kind of product and not the other.
A brace pulls your shoulders back with straps. It is doing the work, which is exactly why they all tell you to start at twenty minutes a day.
A compression vest doesn't hold you anywhere. There's a panel across the back that cues your shoulders open, and you move completely normally in it. I've worn mine on the golf course without thinking about it.
If you have to tighten it, it's a brace. If you pull it on like a t-shirt, it isn't.
3. It's not just shapewear. It does a good deal more than that.
I nearly didn't order, because half the things that came up were called “slimming vests” and one was literally sold as a girdle. I'm not wearing a girdle.
Then I worked out what I was actually looking at. The slimming part is real. Your stomach does sit flatter in it and I won't pretend I mind that. But that's the easy half. Anything tight enough will do that much.
What the shapewear ones haven't got is the panel across the shoulder blades. That's the part that changes how you stand, and how you stand is what you actually notice in a photo. Flattening your front does nothing about your shoulders being rolled forward.
So you get both, and the one that matters is the one the slimming vests leave out.
4. The work shirt test is the one that counts
This is what decides it for most of us. If it shows, it stays in the drawer.
What gives them away is thick seams at the hem, ribbing, and anything with straps. You get a line across the back that shows through a light shirt under office lighting. Nobody says anything. They don't need to.
Ask to see it worn under a buttoned shirt, front and side. Everyone shows you the front. The side is where the cheap ones announce themselves.
5. It only works while you're wearing it
Nobody selling these will volunteer this, so here it is.
It doesn't permanently change anything. Take it off and after a while you're back to standing how you stand.
What it does is cover the hours you can't. I can hold my shoulders back for about four minutes before I forget. I cannot hold them back for eight, and nobody can. That's not a discipline problem, it's just a lot of hours.
Once I stopped expecting it to fix me and started treating it as something I put on with my shirt, it made sense.
The one I wear
Mine is the X-Frame Posture Vest from The Summit. Compression vest, not a brace, so there's nothing to tighten and nothing to build up to. On in four seconds, and the X-shaped panel across both shoulder blades does the whole job.
Of everything above, the shirt test is the only one that really separates one of these from another. This is the one I've worn under a light blue cotton shirt and checked from the side, in the mirror, properly. Nothing.
Four months on, my girlfriend has stopped mentioning my posture and I stand next to people differently than I did in June.
You know what to look for now. So put it on, stand in front of a mirror, and look at your shoulders. Four seconds and you'll know. If it isn't for you, it goes back.