Standing posture

Standing Posture: Setup

Place your feet with the insides parallel and about 3 inches apart, and "zip" your abdomen at buttons one and two.
Bend your knees while lookin down to observe their line of forward travel. They will probably travel forward inside of the line of the second toe. Clench the buttocks to cause the knees to travel forward over the line of the second and third toes.
Push your finger tips into the front of your thighs to monitor quadirceps muscle tension. Lock the knees, then slowly bend them until the quadriceps msucles start to tense up. Now slightly straighten them.
Lengthen your spine as you lean forward by softening at the at the hip joints (don't bend the spine) - feels like a rooster pushing his tail feathers backward. When you can look down and see your ankles, you know you've got it right (overweight or big breasted people, stand side on to a mirror to monitor the correct angle of hip flexion).
Breathe fully into the sides of your rib cage and upper back, and lengthen your head up to the sky. This will straighten out your kyphosis (or "hunch back"). Maintain your elongating spine and continue to gently breathe into the side of your rib cage and upper back.
Bring the points of you shoulders back and roll your shoulder blades away from your ears.
Sway on your feet like wheat on the prairie, and feel the patterns of weight move around the soles of your feet.
Finally, place equal weight over the center of each heel, the ball of the big toe and the ball of the "pinkie" toe (means that you will have put two thirds of your weight onto the front of your foot).
You now have the perfect standing posture of a super athlete poised at the start of a medal winning race.
Relax! Stand tall like a rooster!

(Standing Posture, Scroll right>>>>....)

Standing Posture: From "SwayBack" (left) to "Perfect Athlete" (right)!

During Setup of "Perfect Athlete" posture, place the insides of your feet in parallel. When practicing "Perfect Athlete Posture", you may choose to put your feet in the "at ease" stance.
Feet In Parallel:-	Feet in "At Ease Stance"

Standing Posture Practice:

Standing posture is so important that I recommend you to record the standing posture setup onto a tape and play it back while practicing.
Once you have memorized the posture setup cueing, relax and "stand tall like a rooster" whenever you can. And carry your standing posture into your walking and running!
You need to have a life long commitment to quality standing posture.

Benefits of Correct Standing Posture

Correctly weights and positions the whole body
Correctly fires the postural muscles.
Antidotes the postural ravages of office chair sitting and the destruction of kinaesthetic sensation that occurs with padded shoes and orthotics.

Reference

N Romanov, J Robson: Pose Method of Running Publ. Pose Tech press www.posetech.com
Bruce Thomson: The Back Repair Manual
Danny Dreyer: ChiRunning - a Revolutionary Approach to Effortless, injury Free Running Publ. Simon & Schuster
The Peak Pilates Trainer's manual: www.peakpilates.com