Stretches and Exercises to Improve your Posture!
Have you ever noticed that when someone sits or stands the correct way they actually look 10 years younger? Yes, your posture is like a window to our health, much like our eyes are the windows to our souls. It’s a well-known fact that good posture conveys confidence, poise, and leadership skills. But how you look is not as important as how you really are: poor posture often contributes to back and neck pain, tightness, stiffness, and increased injuries among other drawbacks. Thankfully there are many simple exercises and stretches you can incorporate into your daily routine that will align your muscles and body properly allowing efficient movement.
How can you improve your posture?
You can work to improve your posture by practicing corrective strengthening and stretching exercises every day, or at least 2-3 times a week, for 15-20 minutes each time.
1. Strengthen Your Core
It’s important to have a strong core, it will help keep your back healthy and resistant to pain and injury, these muscles hold your body upright, keep your belly in, improve balance, and enable you to move your body with greater control and efficiency.
• Try these exercises:
- Crunches
- Side planks
- Crunches with twist
- Standing side bends
- Plank hold
- Back extensions
- Swimming
As you see there are different ways to make your core stronger, and you don’t need a gym for that. You can also try these 6 exercises to strengthen your core using a stability ball.
2. Fix Rounded Shoulders
You can improve your posture by strengthening weak upper back muscles while stretching tight muscles in the chest, shoulders, lats, and hips. As soon as you improve the strength of your upper back your chest will become more flexible and your shoulders will naturally pull back, improving your posture.
• Try these exercises:
- Reverse dumbbell flys
- Rows with resistance band
- Standing chest stretch
- Torso stretch
- Standing quad stretch
3. Neutralize Tilted Hips
When viewed from the side, your hips should be neutral and level, it is important to strengthen the weak muscles in your hamstrings, glutes, and abs, while improving the flexibility of your thighs and hip flexors.
• Try these exercises:
- Bridges
- Leg curls (with ball)
- Single leg hamstring flexion (with ball)
- Standing quad stretch
- Kneeling quad and hip stretch
4. Retract a Forward Head
Many think the back and shoulders are key to good posture, but the position of your head and neck is just as important. By fixing the tight and weak areas of the neck, your head will once again center itself just above the shoulders, which may decrease chronic neck pain caused by these imbalances.
• Try these exercises:
- Neck retraction exercise
- Headrest exercise
- Neck stretches
Practice these exercises at least 3-4 times per week and you’ll notice the difference within days, to improve your posture it’s also highly beneficial to practice Pilates and Yoga. In this video you can find some beginner yoga poses that will transform your posture:
As your posture improves, you will look younger, thinner, and appear more confident, which is an imprtant step in the journey to health and happiness. You have nothing to lose but bad posture, and some unnecessary pain.
Best Exercises to Improve Your Posture
[Last Updated on May 15th 2014]
Edited 7/30/14
