When I first started working out, the first challenge I faced was with my posture. Being a skinny guy at the beginning I faced the problem many others face, I had a poor posture and I leaned a bit forward where I stood. The first week into the gym, I knew I had to improve my posture or bail out!
Having a good posture is not only essential for proper muscle gains.
Good posture also ensures that your overall health is optimum and you don’t face muscle cramps or injuries later in your life.
Read till the end of this article to know how you can improve your posture permanently just 3 simple steps!
Why You Need to Improve Posture ASAP?
Many of my clients (mainly the gym beginners), ask me why they need to improve their posture in the first place?
Many beginners have this notion that packing muscles are enough for good health. If you have this mentality, let me clear you — lifting weights while having a bad posture is literally calling for injuries.
Even if you don’t get injured you’ll experience improper or slow gains and aching muscles, which in turn is very hard to fix. Massage can help reduce aches and pains, but it’s important to couple these sorts of treatments with good posture too. In the long run, poor posture can cause permanent disfiguration, so it’s vital you correct it as soon as possible.
So if you have poor posture (rounded shoulder, nerd neck, etc.), let me assure you, it’s nothing to be scared of. Anyone can fix it in the shortest time!
Having said that, let’s get on to the four ways by which we can improve our posture.
Focus Working Out on Your Spine!
The #1 thing people with poor posture have is their bent spine. Standing or sitting with a bent spine makes you look small and under confident. Make sure you sit with a straight spine.
There’s a simple exercise that can help you on this issue. Let me elaborate.
Exercise #1
Start lying face down on the floor. Your hand should be straight pointing directly above your head (hold a stick or rod for better results).
Turn your body backward while holding the rod, until you face your adjacent wall. Your legs should not move throughout the exercise.
Hold this position for 5 seconds, then relax and complete the other side.
Do this 10-12 times.
Fix the Rounded Shoulders!
The next thing you should improve in your posture is rounded shoulders. Rounded shoulders are extremely common with the millennials as with the development of technology, people have gotten more used to slouching in front of TVs and Laptops.
Rounded shoulders are very common and can be easily fixed with face pulls. If you don’t know what this exercise is, HOW TO DO FACE PULL can help you out!
When doing a face pull your upper back muscles get fully activated, thus fixing your rounded shoulders easily.
Make Sure Your Neck Isn’t Bent Forward!
Another posture-related problem people face nowadays is Nerd Neck. In this condition, your neck is bent forwards, giving you a geeky look. Now I don’t mean that being a geek is uncool, but it’s important to have a good posture.
You can fix your Nerd Neck through this very simple exercise.
Exercise #2
Lie down on a bench. Place a tennis ball in between your sternum( the area between your chin and chest) and your chin, and hold it that way!
Get a decent weight (2.5 kg – 5 kg) and hold it above your head. Flex backwards, while keeping the tennis ball intact.
Do this exercise properly for 8-10 times!
Focus on Improving Posture not on Lifting Heavier Weights!
So that was it folks!
These were the 3 simple steps by which you can improve posture. In the end, I’ll give you one last advice, focus on building a proper posture, before lifting heavier weights.
It can save you a lot of time and effort!
If you are stuck at home and cannot continue the gym, read FREEHAND EXERCISES AT HOME!
