What Exercises Would You Recommend to Improve My Posture?

I receive this question a lot from clients, friends, and family, but only when it came from an amazing 70-year-old hiker who still hikes and exercises regularly did I get inspired to create a post about posture.

A muscular imbalance between the chest and the back/shoulders muscles could be the number one cause of a hunched posture, which leads to severe problems in your neck and shoulders areas.

Rounded shoulders–facts:

1. Your shoulder joint is highly affected by the muscles around it, making it easily susceptible to muscular imbalance.
2. So shortened front shoulder muscles and over-stretched, not strong enough, back shoulder muscles cause you to have a hunched posture, leading to the loss of your shoulder mobility and eventually chronic shoulder problems.
3. The muscles in your neck, back, and shoulders control the way your body holds its posture throughout the day.
4. Rounded shoulders increase the stress on the shoulder joints causing pain around the neck, trapezes, and upper back.

Tips:

1. Performing a proper, simple exercise and stretch routine can help you improve your posture within 6 to 8 weeks.
2. Cut down on your push-ups and integrate more back exercises into your routine; dumbbell rows, cable rows, chin-ups, pull-ups, rear shoulders work, etc. Remember always to keep your shoulder blades squeezed together as if trying to hold a tennis ball between them.
3. Start doing more chest stretches; Door-frame stretch, power-band pulls, wall stretches, etc.
4. Include shoulder mobility work to help your shoulders rotators move effortlessly.

Extra tip:

When your back muscles are strong, and your chest muscles are flexible, your shoulders start pulling back straight, giving you a taller posture.

By Ritta Wakim, founder of The True Vegan Body, who helps people over 40 build a knockout body and get addicted to healthy plant-powered eating.