Anything can affect our posture, whether its always wearing your bag on the same shoulder, hunching over at your desk or constantly putting all your weight on one leg. And day to day these things may not feel harmful, they may even feel like they are making things slightly easier. However, in the long-term these little things can effect our posture causing aches and pains that may not feel related but could actually be easily fixed with a little bit of strengthening and stretching to help balance out that posture.
Give these exercises a try and see if it helps!
The exercises
Deadlift
Start standing with your feet hip-width apart and your weight (dumbbells, barbell, resistance bandetc.) in your hands resting in front of you. Keeping the knees soft, bend at the hips and think about running the weight down the front of the legs, go as far as possible while maintaining a flat back (dependent on flexibility). The return, brining the weight up the legs, squeezing the hamstrings and the glutes and maintaining that supported back.
Banded row
Loop the band under your feet standing with your feet slightly apart and your hands holding the band at either end. Bend at the hips, lowering your chest while keeping your back straight and your core engaged. Draw the elbows backward, keeping them close to the body, moving the weights along the upper leg to just above the hips (think pockets) then control back down and repeat.
Banded pull apart
Standing or sitting holding the band with both hands at either end. Hold your arms out in front of you with the palms facing down, try to keep a slight bend in the arm throughout the movement. From here you are going to move both arms out to the sides, pulling the band (again keep that slight bend in the arm). You are aiming to feel this in-between the shoulder blades and in the back of the shoulders. The slowly return the arms to the front and repeat.
Worlds greatest stretch
Start by stepping one foot as far forward as possible to get into a long lunge with the back leg as straight as you can keep it. Take the opposite arm to the forward leg and place the hand on the floor on the inside of your foot. With the other hand, open up the chest and reach up toward the ceiling. Then replace the hand, step the foot back, bring the other foot forward and repeat on the other side.
Upper back prayer stretch
Find a flat surface that you can comfortably rest your elbows on. Place your arms out in front of you placing the hands together palm to palm and rest the elbows on the edge of the surface with your arms outstretched.. You are then going to lower the torso, maintaining a straight back, past the surface so the head goes through the arms. Keep breathing and hold this position for 5 seconds, then slowly release and repeat.
These exercises can be performed together or used as part of other workouts. Try each exercises for 10-21 repetitions for 3 sets.
Enjoy!
