The 3 Best Exercises for Rounded Shoulders Posture

Rounded shoulders posture is typically caused by a chronic tension surrounding the shoulders. Sometimes, you might have had the tension for so long that you no longer feel it. It has become the background noise against which you live your life. These exercises teach both relaxation – necessary to perform the exercises correctly – and awareness of the muscles, tendons, and bones that comprise your shoulders. You simply cannot do the exercises without relaxing and focusing totally on your shoulders.

Let me say that again, in another way. Body awareness is very important. It helps you become aware of acute pain before it becomes chronic. It lets you stand and move in a more efficient, less painful way. Awareness is essential to relaxing. You cannot relax without becoming aware of the signals you are sending your muscle and the signals your muscles are sending back.

What this means is that, at first, you may experience the pain that has been ignored for so long. Tense muscles are painful, and you’re just not listening to them. If you were listening, you would not have any tension, because the message would be loud and clear: relax! But because you only feel the pain of the tension, because you don’t face the signal head on, it only gets more tense and more painful. The sooner you do these exercises, the easier it will be.

I’ll present three exercises that will help you start relieving the tension that you’ve built up through the years. As you do the exercises, you may feel that they are painful. You may also feel that your arms get very tired. This is all normal. You don’t need to overdo it. A little bit at a time will work. But if you find the exercises difficult, it’s not a matter of strength. It’s a matter of relaxing, of becoming aware of how you are moving. While you are working on your shoulders, ask yourself: how can I do this forever? How can I move so that I don’t get so tired? How can I move so that I’m doing the exercise correctly but with no pain? Explore your shoulders and they will reward you.

The first exercise is called The Eagle. It is a very effective exercise for freeing the shoulder blades of lots of tension. We’ll start with that one. Stand up straight, with your arms out to the side. Relax your shoulders downward. Your shoulder blades should slide down along your back freely. Flap your eagle wings up, and as you approach the top, flap the arms downward. As they come downward, draw your shoulder blades together, without lifting them up. Continue to flap. As you get more advanced, while you are flapping, feel a stretch in your arms all the way to the fingertips.

The second exercise doesn’t have a name – at least I can’t remember it. Let’s just call it the spiral. This one is one shoulder at a time, though you’ll have to consciously relax each, since they’ll both have a tendency to rise up. The main point is that you can’t touch your head and you can’t lift your shoulder. Circle your right arm over your left shoulder, past your ear, and down in front of your right shoulder. Remember, don’t lift your shoulder blades. Alternate hands. Don’t tilt your head. Stand up straight. As you get better, try more and more to reach your opposite shoulder as you pass your ear. But still, don’t touch your head.

The third exercise is a little hard to explain. It’s called Drawing the Bow, and does a lot to free up locked shoulder blades, as well as stretching the chest muscles – two great things for reversing rounded shoulders. Start with your hands together straight out in front of you. Turn your hips to the left and let your left arm swing so that it’s out to the side. Let the right hand follow the left arm to the left shoulder, across the chest, and to the right shoulder. Stretch from the left fingertips all the way to the right shoulder, and pull the right shoulder blade toward the left shoulder blade. Release the right hand back along the left arm, and swing the arms back to the center. Repeat on the other side.

Do these exercise 10 or twenty times on each side (or 20 times total for the Eagle). But keep in mind, once you get the hang of the exercises, you should be able to do them indefinitely. They don’t require much tension or strength, only relaxation and awareness, along with proper form.  These exercises will relax your shoulders, but won’t give you a complete posture program.

Tag: rounded shoulders posture

Category: Posture Exercises