Has anyone ever told you “stop slouching” and then pull your shoulders back to only have your shoulders slump right back into that forward hunched position.

Try as we might to force a good posture by holding our shoulders back, it becomes and exhaustive exercise the ends the second we take our attention away from our scapula.

Why Do Shoulders Slump Forward?

Slouching isn’t a lack of moral character, as much as etiquette teachers in movies would love us to believe.

It’s actually a response from your body to a lifestyle that involve tons of sitting.

Our bodies like to adapt to what we do every day to make our lives easier. If we sit slumped in a chair, out bodies will relax the muscles around the shoulder blades and tighten the chest muscles to make slouching easier.

This causes a weakness in our lats and scapula as they are forced to stay in a relaxed state with the chest staying tight.

Without a strong set of mid-back muscles and relaxed chest, our spines stay rounded and this is where we start to run into spinal and lower back issues issues in lifting and eventually everyday life.

How Do We Improve Our Posture?

By helping our bodies do the opposite activation they used to get to this slouched state:

• Strengthen Lats, Rear Deltoids, and Scapula
• Stretch and Roll-Out The Chest and Anterior Shoulder

When we do both of these activities, at least 1x per week but preferably 2-3x, we start to see week over week our shoulder pull back as the chest stops trying to pull it forward and the mid-back takes over some of the load!

A Routine Ya To Try!

If you want my favorite homework piece to work on these two aspects, here’s a routine to try for each:

Scap Strengthening

3 Sets:

10 DB Reverse Flys w/ 2 Second Pause @ Top (Arms Must Stay Straight)

10 Scap Pull-Ups

16 DB Gorilla Rows (8 ea. Side)

Rest 2:00

Anterior Mobility:

2 Minutes of Banded Chest Stretch ea. Side

90 Seconds of Chest Smash w/ KB or Lacrosse Ball ea. Side

While there are plenty of exercises that can help with this, these are just some of my favorites!

If you feel like you’re slouching or you wanna improve your gymnastics and mobility, these 2 routine are great to perform! With the mobility being good before the WOD and the strength after (2x per week being ideal)!

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