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3 Yoga Poses for Better Posture at Work

How to improve your posture is one of the most commonly asked questions that I get. Working from home has so many benefits, but one of the downfalls is that we typically sit in less than desirable chairs and have non-ergonomic setups. This can lead to fatigue, back pain, shoulder pain, neck pain, overall discomfort, and a lack of concentration as a result.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Keep reading to learn 3 key exercises you can do to get out of pain and discomfort and improve your posture.

Seated Cat/Cow

This pose lengthens the spine and helps create mobility in all the right places in the back. Here’s how to do it:

  1. Sit well with your ribs stacked over your hips to begin. Start with your hands on your knees.
  2. Inhale and draw your hands back on your thighs towards your hips. As you do this, find a backend in your back and lift your heart towards the ceiling. Think of moving your tailbone back and rocking your pelvis forwards.
  3. Exhale slide your hands forwards towards your knees. Round your spine drop your head and tuck your tailbone underneath you.
  4. Repeat as many times as you’d like!

Shoulder Blade Pinches

This exercise strengthens the back muscles in charge of holding your shoulders back and sitting up straight.

  1. Bend your elbows at a 90-degree angle next to your ribcage with your palms face up like you’re about to serve someone.
  2. Keep your elbows in towards your ribs the entirety of the exercises.
  3. Pinch your shoulder blades together. Let this draw your hands and forearms back. This movement comes from the shoulder blades pinching in, rather than the arms guiding the movement.
  4. Repeat 6-10 times. You should feel your back muscles engage and possibly the space behind your shoulder.

Seated Spine Circles

This exercise is a mobility and core-strength exercise for your back muscles to help you sit up straight and find proper alignment in your spine. You can think of it like a joint circle. You want to move your ribcage around your spine, kind of like a rotisserie chicken moves around a skewer.

  1. Cross your arms in front of your chest. Keep your hips and legs stable throughout the whole exercise. Engage your core.
  2. Crunch your ribs down and round through your upper back.
  3. Staying crunched down, twist your ribs to the right.
  4. Staying twisted to the right, start to backbend and send your right shoulder behind you.
  5. Staying in the backbend, start to come through center, sending your heart towards the ceiling.
  6. Staying in the backbend, start to twist to the left, sending that shoulder back behind you.
  7. Staying twisted to the left, start to crunch down towards your left hip.
  8. Repeat 3 times, then change directions.

Give these exercises a try throughout your workday – feel free to do them as frequently as you want as long as there’s no pain.

If you want to learn more about how to fix your posture, I have another blog over here about how to change your pelvis position to help your posture.

You can also join my 5-day posture challenge to get free videos that teach you how to improve your posture by clicking here: Get Better Posture!

And then let me know in the comments or shoot me an email at kateformanyoga@gmail.com and let me know how it affected your posture by the end of the day. 

Till next time,

Kate

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