Designed from a personal trainer perspective, this 2-week (3 days/week) challenge is meant to be added into your existing training routine to enhance your posture anytime you feel you need a tune-up. It will focus on exercises that activate, strengthen, mobilize, and provide corrective alignment to improve how you sit, stand, move, and lift. You will build better postural awareness, improve upper-body alignment, reduce tension, and develop the endurance needed to maintain good posture in everyday life. I designed it in a way to feel like a no-brainer to engage with by allowing it to be easily added into your training while still working towards other training goals. You can view it as something complementary that builds results on the side and is meant to be completed over and over.
Who this is for
As shared above, this challenge is for anyone who feels they need a "tune-up" in their posture (in my opinion, every single person can benefit)! Here are just a few indicators: you experience chronic neck or back discomfort, tension headaches, a felt or visual 'slouch' in your daily posture, you've recovered from injury, or experience repetitive postures and movement patterns in everyday life.
Keep in mind that working on your posture does not need to mean something is noticeably off - like what's shared above. Improving posture puts less stress on our bones and joints, strengthens core and back muscles, boosts self-confidence, allows us to breathe better, improves range of motion, increases movement efficiency, corrects muscle imbalances, and improves sleep, digestion, circulation, mood, and more.
Posture issues aren’t about bad posture - they’re about certain muscles working too hard while others don’t get enough work.
What to expect
- 6 workouts to complete, spaced across 2 weeks (ideally 3 workouts each week).
- Sessions are about 30 minutes long with simple formatting so exercises can be maximized.
- Each day centers on a theme as it relates to posture, with some overlap between the days.
- In Week 1, we put great focus on activating (creating that mind-body connection to locating key posture muscles) and waking up the muscles that support good posture. In Week 2, we add more dynamic by building on that foundation and asking those muscles to hold posture with greater instability.
Day 1: Scapula Stability + Postural Activation: Build Awareness of Key Posture Muscles - L3, 29 mins
Day 2: Core Control + Rib-to-Hip Alignment: Connect with the Center of Posture - L3, 30 mins
Day 3: Posterior Chain Strength: Build a Strong & Versatile Back Body - L3, 31 mins
Day 4: Shoulder Control + Postural Strength: Maintain Stability While in Motion - L3, 29 mins
Day 5: Core Engagement with Movement: Maintain Posture While Moving - L4, 30 mins
Day 6: Total Body Posture Integration: Functional Strength, Stability, and Control - L4, 30 mins
Daily Structure
Warm Up & Activation (5-7 minutes)
Strength & Muscle Endurance (14-18 minutes)
Cool Down Stretch & Mobility (5-6 minutes)
Exercises will focus on the following objectives:
- Improve alignment
- Reduce low back, neck, and upper trap tension and stiffness
- Build strength and endurance in underused postural muscles (rhomboids, middle and lower traps, deep core (TVA), glutes, deep neck flexors)
- Stretch and mobilize muscles that get tight and hinder posture (upper traps, neck muscles (levator scapulae, sternocleidomastoid, suboccipitals), chest/pecs, hip flexors, rectus abdominis, hamstrings). Note: this doesn't mean to avoid strengthening these muscles, too.
- Improve posture in everyday life (repetitive movements and positions)
- Improve breathing mechanics
- Improve movement quality and ROM while training (this will enhance performance in current workouts!)
- Establish simple daily posture reset habits
- Create a foundation for long-term posture improvement
Extra tips for success
- Weights will be encouraged in parts of this challenge but the heaviness of weights is never the main goal (like we'd see more of in a traditional strength training workout). The main goals in each session are: alignment, control, muscle engagement, and mind-body connection.
- This challenge is meant to be infused in with other training. With that, you'll want to be aware of not overdoing it in one area of the body. This challenge puts great emphasis on the shoulders, core, and posterior chain (back of the body). It will be best to space these workouts accordingly with other workouts - gauge how you feel the day after one of these workouts and keep in mind what type of training is coming up next in the challenge.
Equipment
You'll need a mat and a range of very light to heavy weights.
By completing this challenge, you'll experience how improving posture is far more sophisticated than constantly reminding yourself to "sit up straight" (although that only helps!). It's about periodically and consistently retraining the body from multiple perspectives. I'm excited to join you in the workouts and hear about your "aha" moments!
-Erica (creator of this challenge)
Backed by Research:
This challenge was built on well-established principles used in physical therapy, corrective exercise, and strength training. While there is endless research to be found, here are just a few citations.