5 Best Exercises To Improve Posture
Posture is the number one focus for people who come to work with me. As we age, we slowly start to notice our posture declining. This is due to many factors, some of which are: degeneration of the bones and pads of our spine, decreased total body strength, poor habits, uneasiness with balance, and more. Thankfully, there is still a lot we can do to help correct and maintain better posture!
I’ve been a personal trainer working with older adults for many years now and have utilized numerous different strategies to help clients achieve their posture goals. Below, I’ve listed the 5 exercises that I have seen work the best in getting people’s posture back on track. Each exercise is hyperlinked to a YouTube video of me demonstrating them.
Snow Angels: Lying on the floor with a foam roller vertically along your spine. This exercise works to open up the chest and shoulder area to regain range of motion that is often lost. If you are someone who has rounded shoulders, Snow Angels will be your bread and butter.
Bridges: Lying on your back with your legs bent up and feet flat. This exercise works to engage your glutes into full hip extension - a position that helps us stand up straight. Often as we age, we begin to fold over at the hips. Bridges help to strengthen those muscles to help keep us upright.
Deadbugs: A stronger core makes for a happier body all around. Deadbugs work to strengthen our spine in a neutral position while lying flat on the ground. This translates to better control over the position of your pelvis while you sit, stand, and move around.
Chin Tucks: This is one we can do almost anywhere, anytime. It’s a simple, yet tough exercise that teaches us how to position our head and neck over our shoulders. We commonly see people with the forward, jutting head especially while reading or working on a computer.
Rows: There are so many variations on rows, and they’re almost all great. Our upper back muscles are overly neglected, unless we intentionally set out to strengthen them. By strengthening these muscles, we can more easily bring our shoulders back and down and move about without hunching forward.
Give all 5 of these a try throughout your week and notice if you feel looser and more able to get yourself into your desired posture position. Want more? I have a Posture Program available that takes you through 12 weeks of phased exercises that gradually build on each other - from Mobilization to Activation and finishing with Strengthening. All 5 of the exercises above are included as well as many more with each exercise in the whole program linked to YouTube videos so you can be sure you are doing them correctly.