If a rounded upper spine or computer slouch is on your mind, you definitely want to check out the exercise in today’s video. A primary reason the upper spine slouches forward in the first place has a lot to do with arms—what’s done with them, and more importantly, what’s NOT.
When’s the last time you used your arms to hold the weight of your body or took your arms overhead?
It may sound simplistic, but there are some subtle actions you can take that have a massive positive impact on your spine.
Your spine doesn’t hold itself up on its own; it’s a group effort of all your back muscles. And these muscles respond to what you do with your body, especially what you do with your arms!
Your hands attach to your arms, ➡️ your arms attach to shoulders, ➡️ your shoulders attach to your shoulder blades, ➡️ and your shoulder blades attach to your spine.
Essentially, your hands are connected to your thoracic spine!
Taking your arms out to the sides of your body and overhead creates a positive-pull of muscle tension on your back that helps to keep your spine upright, kind of like a guy-wire.
I don’t know about you, but IF I’m not intentional about taking my arms overhead, I’ll spend the entire day with my arms out in front of me on the computer, cooking, driving, on my phone, etc.
This modern arms-out-in-front-all-day habit keeps the weight of my arms on the front of my body, which helps gravity pull my spine forward and contributes to computer slouch.😱
In today’s video, I’ll show you an exercise I do every single day to help counteract computer slouch.
Actually, I do this one multiple times throughout the day—at least 5 times! It’s one of my favorites and it feels SO good!
After you try today’s exercise, I’d love to hear how it goes. Just leave a comment under the video and let me know.
Enjoy!
Sydney
2 Responses
In what way does Keeping the shoulder blades spread enhanced the ‘computer slouch’ exercise? I would think contracting our blades toward the spine would strengthen the blades.
Hi Joy, this is a great question. When you contract the shoulder blades toward the spine you lose the low-grade tension on the spine from the rhomboids. This low-grade tension is key in keeping the spine upright. Contracting the shoulder blades toward the spine also contributes to thrusting the ribs, which can bypass the more direct benefits of the exercise on the spine in general. Thanks for your question!