What Are Some Exercises to Correct Posture?

Answer:

There are a lot of good exercises that you can do to help with your posture, most of them relating to the core (your midsection) and your back. These are the areas most people need to improve on and are the major cause of slouching posture.

For the back, I would recommend exercises such as hyperextensions, deadlifts, seated cable rows and bent-over rows.

The first two exercises will work on the strength of your lower back while the last two will work more on the upper and mid back.

The rowing movements should be done with a moderate weight, keeping your lower back arched and tight and concentrating on squeezing the shoulder blades together behind you at the contraction of the rep. This squeezing will help strengthen the muscles that pull your shoulders back, helping to correct the slouching.

Working your rear delts (located at the backs of the shoulders) can also help with bringing the shoulders back. Doing bent-over laterals will accomplish this.

Working your abdominal muscles is very important as these are the muscles that help to support your spinal column and torso. If they are week, you body will have a tendency to hump over and slouch because of lack of support.

The best exercise I would recommend for strengthening your postural midsection muscles, however, is the Pallof Press.

This exercise is done using a cable or rubber training band.

This is my recommended source for training bands. (Note: Use Coupon Code "rbtfitstep" to get 10% off your purchase of a band package)

Stand with your body perpendicular to the cable machine, with your hands holding a cable handle at your stomach.

Then "press" the handle out away from your body.