Perfect Your Posture with Total Gym

When you walk through life standing with good, effortless posture it positively affects your physical and mental health. To others, you appear taller, more confident, and younger. Mentally, you feel higher self-esteem, more assured and maybe even happier. Physically, your body loves it! You breathe fuller with less effort so you’ll feel less tired. Think of all the money you’ll save on Starbucks and Botox alone!

Slumping and poor posture, in general, strains your body causing unwanted tension on your muscles and organs. Hello neck aches and an unhappy, tight low back.

Here are five, multi-faceted, posture centric exercises on your Total Gym that will get you on your way to walking tall and feeling positive.

Five Total Gym Exercises to Help With Posture

Long Seated Mid-Back Rows with a Hamstring and Full Back Stretch

The starting position is just a yummy, backside stretch from your neck to your ankles. When my clients come to me from a long, stressful day at work they look forward to melting into this position.

As I demonstrate in the video, start and learn this move robotically and in distinct pieces.

A) From the deep stretch, lift your chest towards the top of the tower and rock back until your torso is perpendicular to your legs.
B) Squeeze your shoulder blades together as you pull your arms back.
C) Release your shoulder blade squeeze and let your arms straighten, your back open and then dive forward with the chest up for the best hamstring stretch. At the end you can drop your head and fully melt into the stretch.

Posture Benefits

Stretches your hamstrings and back muscles. The majority of us sit more than 10 hours a day, even us work out peeps! Add them up one day and you’ll be surprised. That is why many of us have tight hamstrings which wreaks havoc on our posture and causes low back pain.

Hip Flexor Stretch

Your Total Gym is the perfect machine to stretch this tricky muscle. This is the most overused muscle in your body and it spends all day in its shortest position when we sit. To add fuel to the fire, it is a tough muscle to properly stretch. So what’s the big deal if it’s tight? These actions pull your pelvis out of its neutral position and then your lower back muscles start screaming.

Posture Benefits

Stretches your Hip Flexors to take pressure off of your spine.

AbCrunch with Cobra

The AbCrunch is a must-have accessory for working your core. Get yours here: https://totalgymdirect.com/shop/total-gym-abcrunch/
There are tons of fun, effective exercises you can do but I’ve kept it simple and added a Cobra pose from yoga.

Posture Benefits

The AbCrunch strengthens your core and stretches your low back. The Cobra feels wonderful, strengthens your lower/mid-back, and is very therapeutic for your spine because it counters what we do 100s of times a day - bend forward.

Pull-ups with Thoracic Extension

Take your time with this one and focus on squeezing and strengthening all the muscles that move your shoulder blades. Keep your eyes looking down so you move from the mid-back and not from cranking your neck.

Posture Benefits

Strengthens all your back muscles to make standing up straight effortless rather than a conscious challenge.

Surfer Lat Pull with Upper Back Row

I love the dynamics of Surfer Lat Pull. Check out the video for the kneeling option vs. the high kneeling version which challenges and improves your balance.

Posture Benefits

Yummy low back stretch to start. The beginning of the movement strengthens your low back and then the high elbow finish strengthens your uppermost back/rear deltoids. This is my favorite muscle group to pick on with my clients. Strengthening these guys will counter what computing, texting, and driving do to drag our shoulders forward killing our good posture.

Cheers to standing taller as well as looking and feeling more confident! Added Bonus: Proper posture will reduce all the strain that poor posture puts on your skeletal system. Your mother was right, “Stand up Straight”, and smile! Check out blog posts on Pilates on your Total Gym as all of those exercises and principles will improve your posture too.

Thanks Total Gym Team,
jd