Best Exercises to Improve Your Posture

Admit it, you slouch when you work on your computer, walk, or stand doing any other tasks; we all do it. Usually this means weak postural muscles in your back and tightness in the muscles of the chest and front of your shoulders. 

• Headaches: muscle tightness in the neck and shoulder can lead to bad headaches (see my post on how to get rid of headaches).
• muscle imbalances: weakness and tightness in the different muscles of your chest and back
• pain in your neck, back, or shoulders
• poor lung function: your ribs are not able to expand as much as they need to allow your lungs to efficiently take in oxygen.
• early joint degeneration (arthritis): when the spine is not aligned correctly the bones sit wrong leading to the cartilage being worn. 

Problems caused by bad posture:

I do not think I have ever met anyone with perfect posture. Some people have good posture, but I will say most have fair or poor posture. I will admit, I do not have the greatest posture and I do catch myself slouching when I am tired.

There are easy ways to help strengthen and stretch these particular muscles and other exercises to do to improve your posture while sitting and standing. 

For stretching the chest: 

• Pectoralis stretch in the doorway: 

(you can hold your arms at different angles on the wall to get a slightly different stretch)

• Pectoralis stretch on the foam roller: place arms out to your side and feel the stretch in the front of your chest and arms.

• Biceps stretch: hold door handle and turn your body away from the door. Feel stretch in the front of arm down to elbow.

• Thoracic stretch over the foam roller or chair:  lean back over foam roll feel stretch in mid back and chest.

(use a rolled-up towel if you don’t have a roller)

Stretching should be done 3-5 times for at least 30 seconds.

To strengthen the postural muscles:

• Scapular squeezes: stand up straight (picture 1). Pretend there is a pencil between your shoulder blades and squeeze them together to hold that pretend pencil in place (picture 2).

• Rows (Thera Band): put the band in the hinge of the door so it does not come undone. Start with arms straight (picture 1), then bring hands to your chest while squeezing shoulder blades together (picture 2).

• Shoulder extension (thera band): put the band in the hinge of the door higher than hour shoulders. Start with arms straight (picture 1), then keeping your arms straight pull your arms down to your hips (picture 2).

• Chin Tucks: start in normal posture (picture 1), push head backwards on the neck tucking chin into neck (picture 2).

I recommend performing 2-3 sets of 10 repetitions for each of the strengthening exercises.

ALSO REMEMBER:

One of my PT school professors was very adamant about this when it came to posture: YOUR EYES MOVE FOR A REASON! Meaning you don’t need to look down or up with your head. Use your eyes. Your head can maintain its position while you are working.

Also, while at your desk: raise your computer screen to eye level. This will keep your from slouching down and improve your posture. 

Performing these exercises regularly will greatly improve your sitting and standing posture!