4 Posture Exercises To Do At Work
Feb 05, 2020
How Do You Improve Posture?
Have you ever heard that you have bad posture, or the importance of working on having good posture? If you have, you’re definitely not alone. There are a lot of opinions out there on what is good posture and what is bad posture - and how much to worry about improving it.
At Inside Out, we often say the best posture is the next posture. What we mean by this is that it is important to continue to be moving, adjusting, and creating a mobile environment. Even the ‘best’ static posture is still just that - static and sedentary. Instead of thinking as posture as good vs bad, think of it as something that’s fluid and changing.
That being said, if we find ourselves slouching in a chair for long periods of time, there are common imbalances that we see people inside our clinic for all the time. These include low back pain, neck pain/tightness, shoulder impingement or other shoulder injuries, hip or knee pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, among several other issues. This is because our body is not meant to stay in these seated or slouched postures for long periods of time, and when your body does you can start to develop common imbalances.
For some people, the simple fix for this is to get up and move more often. For others, work or travel might require you to be bound to a seat for longer periods of time than you would care for. In these cases, we tell the clients we work with to aim for progress over perfection. It’s not ideal to sit in a chair all day every day, but it also might not be realistic to do much to change the hours spent sitting.
If you find yourself in the second category, then we’ve put together a simple routine that you can run through at your desk in less than 5 minutes. While these exercises show the use of a band, which we recommend investing in, these can be done with your arms alone if you’re really in a pinch.
Check out the link below with the 4 seated posture exercises we recommend including:
1️) Banded Rotation
2️) Banded Pullaparts
3️) Banded Passthroughs
4) Banded Behind the Neck Pulldowns
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Aim to run through each exercise 10 times, and repeat 1-3 times through each one. Perform this consistently over time and you’ll be surprised how well your body will feel with just a little extra investment.
When Bad Posture Leads to Pain
If you’re not getting the progress you want, or you have pain or injury that you’re trying to work around, we can help. We help busy individuals looking to get back to the activities they love every single day, and if pain or injury is holding you back we can help you do the same.
Most people don’t know how to stay healthy and fit without getting hurt. At Inside Out Strength and Performance, we provide a clear plan to get you in the best shape of your life, without getting injured, so that you can be active and confident that you’ll feel your best for years to come.
We help North County San Diego’s active adults and runners dealing with pain or injury get back to living a pain-free, strong, and confident life.
We are the Strength Docs who help active adults and runners live a strong, confident, and pain-free life. Fill out our contact form here to get a clear plan and get started.