What’s your posture like right now as you’re reading this article? Are your shoulders slouched? Is your neck hanging over? Can you feel the curve in your spine? You probably haven’t even been thinking about it.
We have too many other problems running through our minds to pay much attention to the way that we’re standing. But that’s a mistake and one that is going to creep up on you over time and become a big problem as you get older.
If you already have some posture problems, trying to correct them just by altering the way you stand is not going to work. Of course, you should pay attention to how you stand and how you sit, but you need to do some consistent exercises to actually see genuine progress.
Here are a few that you can do at home in your own time that can help you to correct some of the damage you might have done.
- Cat & Cow
This exercise is great for building up the mobility in your spine and to help strengthen and energize the muscles in your lower back which may be giving you a bit of trouble and failing to stabilize the rest of your spine.
It’s a fairly simple exercise that isn’t too strenuous. You start on all fours with your spine in a neutral position. Make sure your hands are directly under your shoulders and your knees straight under your hips.
As you exhale, arch your spine fully and then hold it in that position for about five seconds. Then as you exhale, allow your spine to round out, engaging your core in the process and then once again hold the position for five seconds.
You can do this as many times as you want, or as you are capable of but ideally you should be doing at least ten repetitions.
- Seated Elbow Grasp
Something that may be contributing to your bad posture is the position of your shoulder blades. The more you hold yourself in a hunched position, the further the distance between your shoulder blades grows and then the worse your slouch will be.
This is a good exercise for helping your shoulder blades naturally drift back towards each other which will, in turn, pull your shoulders back and help you stand up straighter. Start this on your knees and sitting back onto your ankles.
Then sit up straight and try to push your shoulder blades down and back. Bring your arms behind your back and grab your left elbow with your right hand and your right elbow with your left hand.
You may not be able to reach far enough at first, or maybe not at all, but that’s okay because the arms and hands are not the focus of this exercise, it’s about your shoulder blades. So grabbing your forearms will be just fine.
Hold the position for about ten to twenty seconds and then repeat it a few times.
- Chin Tuck
Fixing your posture is not all about your back and your shoulders, how you are holding your neck is also going to affect your overall posture. And you’ll actually find that just tucking your chin back makes it feel a little better.
But as we’ve said, you need to work on consistently to fix it and so you should be making an exercise out of this one small action. You can even do this while sitting at your desk at work or on the bus.
You can do it standing up too if you want. Start by aligning your chin with the floor and then pulling your head back so that your neck is straight. Hold this position for twenty seconds if you can and then release it.
Repeat this five times. It’s a quick exercise that may seem easy on the surface but it’s an effective one for working on the alignment in the upper part of your spine so do it as often as possible. Once a day would be perfect.
- Doorway Stretch
Doors are underrated. They serve more purposes than keeping your private moments private. There are a whole bunch of different exercises that you can do with the help of a doorway and this is one of the more useful ones.
This will help you to loosen the muscles in your chest and shoulders. When these are tight you are more likely to have difficulty pulling yourself free of a slouch, so it’s important to work on them.
Put your hands on the top corners of the doorframe and your upper arms in line with the sides of the frame. Depending on how tall you are and how long your arms are you are probably going to have to bend them for this.
Step through the door with one foot, leaving your hands in position and then lean forward. Hold this for twenty seconds. Repeat it three or four times and alternate which leg you step forward with each rep.
- Shoulder Squeeze
A similar exercise to the elbow grasp that we discussed earlier, this shoulder squeeze is a great way to work on your shoulder blades and it might actually be a little bit more effective. If your shoulders are in particularly bad shape, this would be a good thing to try.
On your knees, sitting on your ankles like the other exercise and once again you sit up straight with your arms behind your back. But this time, interlock your fingers and stretch your arms out with your palms facing the floor.
Take a deep breath and as you inhale, lift your arms up so that your shoulder blades are squeezing together and your chest and shoulder muscles are working. Do this for the entire breath.
Doing a combination of these exercises every day should help you a lot with your posture and you can put your focus on different ones depending on where you think the most significant of your problems are.
Of course, if you want to try something that will challenge you a little bit more, a lot of exercises in the gym can help. Anything that requires you to engage your back such as pull-ups, various forms of squats or lat pull-downs are very helpful.