About the Back
Upper Back Strengthening Exercises To improve Hunched Posture
Upper back strengthening exercises are a key to fixing a hunched upper back (a thoracic kyphosis).
Apart from being unsightly, a hunched upper back puts your head in front of your centre of gravity. As a result, the weight of your head increases from 11lbs to about 60lbs.
No wonder you have pain across the shoulders. Imagine carrying a sack of potatoes around your neck every day! It's having the same effect.
Why You May Be Getting Pain in the Upper Back
Your head position makes the long erector spinae muscles work overtime like horses reins around the convexity of your hunch, trying to pull your head back. The same overactivity painfully compresses the spinal segments through your middle back and squeezes fluid from the discs.
Features of Thoracic Kyphosis – a Hunched Upper Back
- You look round-shouldered
- The head is thrust forward
- Neck pain and stiffness is common
- Under the back of the skull feels permanently sore
- The cervical facets joints feel like painful knobs in the sides of the neck
- Headaches are common
- Your chest is stiff and barrel-like
- The rib-to-spine junctions are stiff
- Breathing is poor (mouth breathing)
How to Do Upper Back Strengthening Exercises
Start by straightening your back like this daily with a BackBlock
Self Treatment at Home Every Day is the Way to Go
The bottom line is you need to get your thoracic spine straighter. You can do this at home and there are two things you need.
- The BackBlock. This will have a key role in any exercises. It is remarkably cheap and easy to use.
- This comprehensive video on upper back strengthening exercises. In it Sarah shows you:
- How to both straighten and strengthen the upper back
- How to alleviate upper back pain
- How to fix an unsightly round-shouldered or hunched back
- Inherited postures and working postures
- What constitutes normal posture
- How work postures and relentless computer use strains the upper back
- How the head carried in front of the line of gravity become much heavier
- How sitting makes the lower abdominal muscles weak
- How weak shoulder blade muscles and tight shoulders restrict straightening
- Exercises to strengthen must come after exercises to straighten the upper back
- How strengthening works from the pelvic floor up
- The good and the bad abdominal 'core' strengthening exercises
- The 2 important exercises to straighten the upper back
- The 4 best exercises to strengthen the upper back
You can read more about this video here or go to Sarah's Back Pain Online Store to download. This provides all you need to do your own self-treatment at home.
