The Best Upper Body Strength Exercises To Improve Your Posture
People come to the gym with this rounded forward's posture, mostly caused by computer time, screen time, TV time, and the millennial lifestyle. Given that our eyes are positioned at the front of the face, the head will always have a habit of wanting to drift forward as bringing the head closer to things is considered easier on the eyes by the brain. This is why building upper body strength is important, so, the main three things you must focus on are improving your bench press, your overhead press, your pull-ups, and your Big Six main lifts are going to be number one. So let’s jump right into a couple of exercises that are going to improve all of these main key points.
Do These 4 Exercises To Strengthen Your Upper Body
So the first exercise we're going to do is a Thoracic Extension. Roller Thoracic Extension – The foam roller can be a great tool to not only loosen the muscles that can restrict your thoracic mobility but to actually put your thoracic spine through extension.
Lie back over a roller on the ground with the roller at about your mid-back, just underneath your shoulder blades.
Put your arms crossed or behind your head, whatever feels most comfortable.
Extend your back over the roller, relaxing back over the roller. As you extend back over the roller, reach your arms overhead and relax your head and neck.
Just going to spend about 30 to 60 seconds here and this is the whole exercise.
Our second exercise, which is an active strengthening exercise for the same position, is a lunge arch - Dorsal Raise Exercise.
Lie down on your belly and bring your arms up.
Slowly arch your upper back as high as you can.
Squeezing in the middle of your back and you're going on to this pose here for 30 seconds.
So the first exercise, we were passively relaxing into the extension shape. Now we're actively contracting and strengthening the muscles of your upper back and spinal erectors to help you pull into a better posture when you’re in a resting state.
So those are our two drills for thoracic mobility. The next one we're going to do is for Shoulder Flexion - Wall Down- Dog Stretch.
Come over to the wall and place your hands on the wall anywhere between shoulder and elbow height.
Walk your feet back so that they are underneath your hips.
Press into your palms as you slowly lower your chest and shoulders towards the floor until you feel the stretch through your chest and shoulders.
You're going to be stretching through his glutes, through his pecs, through the front of your shoulder.
And then again, you're going to spend about 30 seconds in this position.
And then the final exercise you want to do to work on your upper mobility before your train is going to be some active Shoulder Pole Extension.
Grab a pole or broomstick and hold it behind your back. Hold it just wider than shoulder-width.
You're going to twist your palms forwards - this is what we call external rotation of the shoulder.
You’re going to do some raises straight behind you and repeat.
So in summary, you want to do these four exercises before you train for your thoracic mobility and for your shoulder mobility. It's an extension on the roller, an active arch on the ground, an overhead stretch on the wall, and then some shoulder extension reps with a broomstick, and then you're going to have awesome upper body mobility to improve your bench press, your overhead press, your pull-ups, and you're on the Big Six lifts.
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