The Best Posture Workout At Home (FIX YOUR HUNCHBACK!)

I'm going to show you how to straighten your back posture with five simple yet effective exercises. We'll cover a few causes, go through some corrective exercises and combine this all into a 10 minute routine with instructions. By the end of this video, you should feel immediate relief and will have a 10 minute go to routine to keep these improvements for life. First we need to cover where this back posture came from. Your body is an adaptation machine. In as little as three months of prolonged sitting and standing in hunched over positions, your body will adapt to become more efficient at being in that position all day. Combine this with the fact that we tend to worsen the problem. When we work out, we focus on training the muscles that we can see in the mirror while neglecting the ones that we can't. This leads to a really tight frontside that pulls your back forward and a really weak backside that can't straighten it out. To fix this, we're going to use a method that's been proven effective in multiple papers. The method is a 10 minute corrective routine that involves two parts. Part one will focus on mobility exercises to loosen up the back and the first exercise will extend the back upright, the second will rotate the back and the third will teach your body how to move in its new upright position. Then, in part two, to maintain this new posture long term, immediately after the mobility, we'll use two exercises to activate and strengthen the weakened muscles in our back. The routine works either on its own if done consistently at least two to three times a week, or even as a warm up right before your upper body workouts. As long as you implement it while making an effort to get up and move frequently the rest of the day. Alrighty, so let's dive into the first mobility exercise which is going to help us extend the back upright. Going to get down with your knees underneath your hips and then find yourself either a bench or a couch. Place your elbows on top of it with your hands together.

From here, take a deep breath in through your nose and then as you exhale, drop your upper back and your head down towards the floor while bringing your hands to the back of your head. Here you should feel a deep stretch in your upper back and your lats. As you do so though, avoid excessively arching your lower back. Instead, the stretch comes from your upper back and your lats. Then from here take another deep breath in and then exhale and see if you can get just a little bit deeper. And then from here, push your elbows against the bench to open up your shoulder blades.

And then you're going to come back.

Down for another rep and then repeat this for a total of 10 reps.

Now we're going to use a rotation exercise to loosen the back even more. Grab a pillow or foam roller, get on all fours with your knees under your hips and your hands under your shoulders and squeeze the pillow or foam roller between your legs. This is going to help prevent you from cheating. Then place one hand behind your head and try to touch your elbow to the opposite wrist. Continue squeezing the pillow or foam roller as you do so. You should feel a deep stretch in your mid back. From here, push away from the floor with your planted hand as you rotate your upper back to drive your elbow and head towards the ceiling. In this top position, you should feel your mid back muscles really working to open up your chest and then come back down to complete your first rep. Also note that breathing throughout each rep is essential for fully opening up your upper back. So make sure to inhale on the way down and exhale on the way up rather than holding your breath. Repeat this for a total of 6 reps before switching sides. Alright, so now that our upper back is in a better position from the last two exercises, we then want to reteach you how to stay and move in this new upright posture with the last mobility exercise. By the way guys, if you want to fix your muscle imbalances and posture while at the same time lose unwanted fat and build lean muscle, our Built with Science programs will help you do just that. Within our programs, we've developed a system that uses science to transform your body into a lean, attractive physique. It's worked for thousands of people all over the world. If you take our free one minute quiz at built with science.com, it's going to ask you a few questions to determine which of our programs will best suit you and your fitness goals. I hope to see you in there, but for now, let's move on to the exercise. Stand with your legs under your hips, squeeze your butt and lightly brace your core. Take a band and push the band apart with your palms facing away from each other and pinkies up. If you don't have a band, you can use a bed sheet instead with an overhand grip. From there, bring your arms overhead and down towards your butt and then back overhead to the starting position to complete a rep. You should feel a deep stretch in your chest and your upper back muscles working to stabilize your arms. Repeat this for a total of 10 reps and avoid arching your lower back and sticking out your gut as you do. So now that our back is mobilized, we need to activate and strengthen our weak back muscles to help us maintain this good posture. All right, for the first exercise, you're going to stand with your feet hip width apart. You're going to squeeze your glutes, squeeze your core. You're going to take a band, put one side behind your neck, hold the other side straight out with your arms straight. And then what you're going to do is just drive your elbows apart by squeezing your upper back together. You're going to hold this in position for 3 seconds and then you're going to come back and repeat for a total of 10 reps. But as you do so, you want to avoid arching your lower back as you pull. Keep that core braced. And you also want to avoid shrugging your shoulders up. When you do this properly, you should feel your mid back muscles really working. You can think as if you wanted to pinch a pencil between your shoulder blades to better activate your mid back muscles. Now, if you don't have a band, you can perform the Scarecrow instead. Place your head on a chair, table or significant other's butt for support. Bend over at your hips and then drive your elbows out and back, keeping them at 90 degrees. Hold that for three seconds without excessively arching your lower back. Then rotate your hands up as far as you can and hold that end position for another three seconds before coming down and repeating for a total of 5 reps. Now we'll add a little bit more difficulty. Lay down on your stomach, squeeze your butt and flatten your stomach against the floor. Move your arms into a wide position overhead with your thumbs pointing up. Then lift your hands off the ground by about an inch and then pull your shoulders down and away from your ears. From here, pull your elbows down towards your hips while squeezing your upper back until your arms form the shape of a W. Hold this for two seconds. You should feel your mid and lower trap muscles in your back working to maintain this position. Then extend your arms out to the side as you maintain the back tension to create create the shape of a T. As you do this part, you're going to feel yourself fighting the urge to let go of the upper back tension and letting your shoulders shrug up. Avoid doing so. Once you get to the T shape, hold this for two seconds and then pull your arms back into the W and then finally slide your hands back up into the Y. Try not to allow your arms and hands to touch the ground and repeat this for a total of six reps. Okay, so now you've got your corrective routine to straighten your back, but maybe you need help with other muscle imbalances. Or maybe you could use some help with losing fat building lean muscle. To check out our training and nutrition programs that'll help you do just that, head over to builtwscience.com and take our free quiz to find out which of our programs are best for you and your specific body. Also, here's another posture video and a glutes video I've made that will help you further improve any existing muscle imbalances. Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you next time.