Wellness & Fitness

Six simple exercises to improve your posture

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Poor posture can lead to serious neck, lower back pain and muscular imbalance. FILE PHOTO | NMG

Poor posture can lead to serious neck, lower back pain and muscular imbalance. To correct this, we must activate our weak muscles while stretching tight ones. Here are some of the exercises you can do to maintain the right posture.

1. Reverse Plank Bridge

This one activates specific muscles while stretching key muscles such as pectoral and neck muscles. This exercise requires the following:

• Keep your arms straight and pull your shoulders back.

• Bring your shoulder blades together.

• Tuck your chin.

• Push your chest up and extend your spine.

• Your fingers can be pointed forward or backward.

2. Arch Up

The exercise consists of three movements that require you to tuck your chin and do an external rotation of your arms — thumbs should go upward.

• Shoulder flexion. Push your arms and shoulder blades upwards and try to raise your arms as high as possible without bending them.

• Horizontal abduction. Lift your arms as high as possible to the side and try to bring your shoulder blades together.

• Shoulder extension. Push your arms upwards (thumbs up) and lift them as high as possible.

3. Plank

Planking is one of the simplest exercises that give you plenty of health benefits. It can improve your posture if done correctly. When doing the plank exercise, be sure to keep your legs straight, don’t allow your lower back to sink, and make sure you are looking down at the floor.

4. Posture Belt

Another way to fix your posture, especially of your back is to wear a posture belt. Wearing one during the first few hours of morning is good practice. The following steps were outlined by Pranayoga.

• Place the strap over your upper back and hold the ends in each hand.

• Drape each end of the strap over its respective shoulder.

• Cross the strap in the back holding one end in each hand.

• Pull the straps so that you feel it in your trapezius (neck and upper back) muscles and secure the ends at the front.

5.Wall Angels

This exercise is a simple way to test your posture. To do this exercise, simply lean back against the wall and lift your arms up and down — think of lying down in the snow and creating “snow angels”. Make sure your rear is touching the wall and your back is flat against the wall.

6.Up Against the Wall

One of my favourite stretches is Up Against the Wall. Here you will put your hands behind your head, place your elbows to the wall and stretch.

Your posture is guaranteed to improve if you follow these exercises. However, you must be disciplined and train your body to achieve good posture. Also, start today!