3 Steps To Improve Your Posture And Flexibility

Flexibility is one major component of fitness that is often overlooked. It is because of this I see so many injuries. A proper flexibility program should be the foundation of an exercise program to help improve posture and reduce injuries. When you have a posture deviation there is usually tightness in one area and weakness in another. For example we often see individuals come in with rounded shoulders. This comes from certain muscle tightness and weakness. You need to address both to see maximal improvements. Here is a 3 step process to help improve posture.

1. Myofascial Release:

The Wikipedia definition of Myofascial Release is a form of soft tissue therapy used to treat somatic dysfunction and accompanying pain and restriction of motion. This is accomplished by relaxing contracted muscles, increasing circulation, increasing venous and lymphatic drainage, and stimulating the stretch reflex of muscles and overlying fascia. What this means is when we are tight it is usually caused by injury or inactivity of a muscle. This can develop into adhesions that form in the muscle, or knots, that may limit range of motion. In order to bread up these adhesions we can use myofascial release. This involves applying pressure to adhesions to relax them and break them up.

This can be done by massage or foam rolling. There are many pieces of equipment you can use to help break of these knots. Two popular methods are foam rolling and a massage stick seen below:









Using our example again with rounded shoulders, a great place to foam roll would be the lats. These muscles are often tight with this posture distortion.

2. Static Stretching:

Once you have started to workout out any scar tissue or adhesions that have built up you can begin stretching them out with static stretching. This is your typical stretching protocol. You hold a static stretch usually for around 30 seconds. You need to hold it for at least this long so that your muscle has a chance to relax and lengthen longer than normal. It should never hurt to stretch. Only take the muscle to a point of minor distortion. If you stretch too far you are likely to injure yourself.

When you see rounded shoulders a great static stretch would be the pectoral muscles. An easy way to stretch here is standing in a door way holding on to the sides with your arms and extending your chest and shoulders through.
3. Strengthening Exercises:

Finally once we have done the necessary stretching you need to incorporate a strengthen exercise. Even if you gain flexibility in tight muscles, the weak ones may not be functioning properly. When you have a tight muscle, the antagonist or opposite muscle will most likely be weak and inhibited. This muscle needs to be strengthened to see maximal benefit for range of motion.

Going back to our example of rounded shoulders we need to strengthen the rhomboids and middle/lower trapezius. These are important posture muscles that become weakened with long periods of sitting at a desk. A great exercise here is the SB Cobra seen below.



Mike
www.sandiegopremiertraining.com