Do you have a slouched posture? Are you tired of being mocked by family and friends? Do you want to boost your self-confidence with an upright, reassuring posture?
If your answer to these three (3) questions is “YES”, then congratulations as you are in the right place to learn how you can rapidly improve your body alignment using the six (6) simple steps revealed in this guide.
Now, without taking any more of your time, let’s dive into these steps together.
#1. Work on Your Stance
Do you know that poor posture is associated with a variety of health issues like headaches, backaches, and general fatigue? Research has shown that having a poor posture can significantly hinder blood flow and the amount of oxygenated blood that reaches your vital organs.
You can know if your standing stance is poor or otherwise in one simple way. Just place your back on a wall with your heels around 6 inches from the wall while maintaining a gap between the wall and your neck of about 2 inches in width.
If your stance is poor or if your spine is bent, then the distance of your neck from the wall will be greater than 2 inches. By trying to keep a neutral spine posture during this exercise, you will ensure that both your back and neck are perfectly aligned.
If you want to enhance your posture to give you an upright, reassuring and confident stance, you can try any or all of these exercises:
Wall Angels
To perform wall angels, you need to place your back up on a wall then move your arms in an upward and downward motion. Wall angels help to open up your chest while aligning your shoulders.
Chin Tucks
With chin tucks you need to pull your chin straight back if you are trying to make a double chin. You do this while your head is level and not tilted. Chin tucks will help to improve your forward head stance.
Face Pull Exercise
To perform the face pull exercise, you need to pull a cable or band towards your face while your elbows remain high during the exercise. The face pull exercise will ensure that your shoulders remain back rather than drooping forward by strengthening your rear shoulders and upper back region.
Chest Stretch Exercise
You can do the chest stretch exercise by stretching out your arms and placing them against a doorway or wall. This exercise will help improve your shoulders making them appear more rounded while at the same time opening up congested chest muscles.
Reverse Fly Exercise
For the reverse fly exercise.you need to bend forward a little bit while you raise your arms to your sides either bear or with light weights. This exercise will help to improve your posture by pulling back your shoulders while strengthening both your rear shoulders and upper back.
#2. Maintain a Healthy Spine
You need to try as much as possible to maintain a healthy spine. This means you need to avoid standing or sitting for long. You can also improve your spine with these exercises:
Plank Exercise
To do the plank exercise you need to simply maintain a push-up posture, but with your forearms flat on the floor. The plank exercise will not only support your spine, but will also help to promote an upright posture and strengthen your core.
Bird Dog Exercise
Get on your hands and knees when performing the bird dog exercise and then while kneeling, hold the posture of one arm and an opposite leg stretched out as far as you can. This exercise will help stabilize your spine while also improving your balance.
Superman Exercise
To execute the Superman exercise, you need to lie on the floor with your chest and face down to the ground. Next, lift up your legs and arms from the ground a bit as if you are soaring through the air like Superman in flight. This exercise will definitely support your spine by strengthening your lower back.
Glute Bridges
With glute bridges you need to lie your back flat on the floor while you lift up your hips. This exercise is known to improve both your spine, lower back, and hips by strengthening your glutes.
Dead Hang Exercise
For the dead hang exercise you need a pull-up bar. Hang with your shoulders as relaxed as possible from this pull-up bar to execute the dead hang exercise. Your spine will be decompressed while your shoulders will be strengthened and its posture improved.
#3. Maintain Core Strength
Strengthening your core is a great way to improve your posture and you can do so with a number of home exercises like the hollow body hold, mountain climbers, Russian twist, leg raises and V-ups.
Here’s how to perform these home workouts:
Hollow Body Hold Exercise
To execute this workout, you first need to lie flat on your back then slightly lift your legs and arms from the ground, and hold this posture for 30 seconds or more. This workout will help to promote deep core strength while also improving stability.
Mountain Climbers Exercise
While maintaining a plank posture, drive your knees as quickly as you can towards your chest and perform as many repetitions as you can within a minute. Mountain climbers help to build your core strength as well as endurance levels.
Russian Twist Workouts
Russian twist workouts are quite easy to execute and very effective in strengthening your rotational core and obliques. To do this exercise, you need to sit on the floor and slightly lean back as you twist your torso from side to side.
Leg Raises
Perform leg raises by getting flat on your back then raising your legs straight up. With this exercise you will be able to strengthen your lower abdominal muscles.
V-Ups
V-ups is also a great exercise for your core as it improves both your control and strength. To perform this exercise you just need to.lift up both your legs and arms forming the letter “V” in the process.
#4. Do Not Overexert Yourself
The stance, spine, and core strength exercises highlighted above will definitely work wonders for your posture. However, it is important not to overexert yourself when doing these exercises as this could result in niggling injuries like a strained back and/or joints.
You should learn how to perform these exercises in moderation, knowing when to call it a day. To this end, it is better to have a well-structured workout plan designed to help improve your core, spine, stance, and posture gradually without straining your body to the point of injuries.
#5. Strike a Balance
Your muscles and skeletal structure consists of a wide range of bones, joints and muscles. It is therefore vital that you strive to maintain a healthy balance in the number of postures that your body is exposed to on a daily basis.
So, spending too much time trying to perfect a particular posture may end up causing more harm than good to your entire bodily functions. When you workout, you should be alert and note those parts of your body that seem to be tensed up when you exercise for a considerable length of time.
Also, you should find time to unwind and relax your body as a way of achieving this balance. What’s more, try as often as possible to maintain an upright posture when walking, as by doing so, you will experience less stress on your body while you are able to achieve perfect posture.
#6. Maintain Good Sleep Quality
You can never underestimate the importance of a decent night’s rest in ensuring that you recover fully from an extended period of posture training. Sleep and recovery is actually when you build muscle and not when you are lifting weights because sleep is when the micro-tears in your muscle tissues heal resulting in muscle hypertrophy.
Rest also helps you to gather your thoughts on the day’s activities and prepare yourself mentally for the next session of workouts.
Conclusion
Poor posture is known to cause both mental and physiological dysfunction. Sitting or standing for long periods of time can cause you to have poor posture, therefore you should try as much as possible to stay active and avoid poor habits like slouching if you want your posture to be top-notch. If you need more help with exercises for improving posture, you can ask an IFBB PRO here and be rest assured of a prompt response to your enquiries.
