Poor posture can cause pain and stiffness in the neck, back, and shoulders. Posture exercises can help to tone muscles and realign the spine. Exercises include neck stretches, shoulder posture exercises, and core strengthening exercises.
Posture exercises are designed to tone your back and neck muscles and return your spine to proper alignment when sitting or standing. Poor posture can occur at any point along the head, neck, and back area. The correct neutral posture is one in which the shoulders are squared above the hips, the spine is long, the stomach is flat, and there is a slight inward curve in the lower back.
A healthy person without spinal disease and damage should be able to move freely and maintain a sitting position without stiffness, pain, or numbness. Problems occur when the person allows the body to slump in an unnatural position. Eventually, muscles and tendons become stretched or atrophied due to poor posture and must be retrained with postural exercises.
Neck pain or stiffness is a common complaint, often caused by sitting or standing with your head forward. Turning your head clockwise, then counterclockwise is a good stretch to release muscle tension. A neck exercise can be done while standing or sitting with your back flat against a wall. The person places the chin on the neck and the neck on the wall, holds the posture, and then returns the head to a level position.
The shoulders are often tense areas, due to forward hunched shoulders. Shoulder posture exercises include lying on your stomach on the floor and lifting your shoulders back so that your shoulder blades meet. Another thing can be done while leaning over a sofa or chair and keeping your abdominal muscles tight. One person stretches their arms directly away from the body, and slowly lowers their arms to the side, then raises them up again. This posture exercise is especially effective when holding small hand weights or cans of food.
The core muscles of the lower back, abdomen, and hips are vital to good back posture. To strengthen both the back and the abdomen, a person can lie on the floor facing up and then lift the legs and pull the knees in toward the chest, keeping the spine and arms pressed into the floor. Ten repetitions is a good starting goal.
A good general back exercise can be done with an exercise ball. The ball can be placed between your lower back and a wall. The person then rolls down the wall with the ball in a bent position. A person can start with ten repetitions down and up the wall. As with all stretches, postural exercises should be stopped if they cause pain.
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