The Best Exercises to Improve Posture

Why you should fix your bad posture now

Bad posture doesn’t only make you look unhealthy and unattractive, it also causes several health problems. Take a look at this infographic to learn how bad posture makes you look and feel unhealthy and tired, and how good posture makes you look and feel healthy and confident:[2]

Exercise #1 – Reverse Plank Bridge

The Reverse Plank Bridge activates specific muscles while stretching key muscles like your pectoral muscles and the muscles in your neck. 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.

Exercise #2 – Arch Up

The Arch Up exercise consists of three movements. All three movements 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.

Exercise #3 – Plank

Planking is one of the simplest exercises that give you plenty of health benefits. Planking 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.[5]

Exercise #4 – Posture Belt

Another way to fix your posture, especially your back posture, is to wear a posture belt. Wearing one during the first few hours of the 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 muscles and secure the ends at the front.

Exercise #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”).[6]

Make sure your rear is touching the wall and your back is flat against the wall

Exercise #6 – Up Against the Wall

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

Exercise #7 – Text Neck

Lastly, this exercise will help you prevent bad posture, and it’s easy to do several times during the day. The exercise is simply to stop looking down at your phone. Obviously, we are not going to stop using our phones anytime soon, so a solution is this: bring your phone to you at eye level.

Your posture is guaranteed to improve if you follow these 7 exercises; however, you must be disciplined and train your body to achieve good posture. Also, start today! It becomes much more difficult to improve bad posture the longer you put it off. Improving your posture will improve your life.

No Gym Required: How to Get Fit at Home

Do these simple resistance bands exercises at home for a full-body workout!

No resistance bands? Just use robe ties or nylons and follow this workout plan.