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:
- Sit well with your ribs stacked over your hips to begin. Start with your hands on your knees.
- 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.
- Exhale slide your hands forwards towards your knees. Round your spine drop your head and tuck your tailbone underneath you.
- 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.
- Bend your elbows at a 90-degree angle next to your ribcage with your palms face up like you’re about to serve someone.
- Keep your elbows in towards your ribs the entirety of the exercises.
- 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.
- 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.
- Cross your arms in front of your chest. Keep your hips and legs stable throughout the whole exercise. Engage your core.
- Crunch your ribs down and round through your upper back.
- Staying crunched down, twist your ribs to the right.
- Staying twisted to the right, start to backbend and send your right shoulder behind you.
- Staying in the backbend, start to come through center, sending your heart towards the ceiling.
- Staying in the backbend, start to twist to the left, sending that shoulder back behind you.
- Staying twisted to the left, start to crunch down towards your left hip.
- 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