Perfect Posture - The Significance in Posture with Weight Training & Exercise
( Find the Ideal Posture Position for Optimal Ergonomically Safe Results - fitFlex Articles - Learn, Share and Discover! ) ..
Most people recognize and appreciate somebody who has proper posture. People who have proper posture not only look better but usually
feel and function better as well. Imbalanced training can contribute to poor posture and the problems that come with it, but it's not
difficult to reduce upper-back, neck and shoulder pain and improve your appearance.
You pick up training habits from friends, amateur and professional bodybuilders and some personal trainers. Bench presses, incline
presses, flyes, decline presses, cable crossovers and pec deck flyes are all very popular and are included in some combination in chest
workouts. The bench press is without doubt the most popular lift in North America. The pressing movements listed above target the
pectoralis major, deltoid serratus anterior and triceps. Flyes primarily target the pecs and delts. The pectoralis major pulls the
arm across the chest and down to your side and internally rotates the upper arm. More important, the pecs pull the shoulders forward,
giving a rounded-shoulders appearance. The structures that are actually pulled forward are the clavicle and scapula, The scapula, or
shoulder blade, is the more mobile of the two structures.
Training can increase the strength and tone of the muscle, in this case the pecs. Adaptive shortening of the muscle can take place if
the rounded-shoulders posture is maintained for extended periods of time. That keeps the shoulders pulled forward. It's further
complicated if the muscles that pull the shoulders back are weak. Bottom line: Muscle imbalance can lead to poor posture.
The first problem is obvious: poor appearance. The other problems may not be so obvious. The shoulder blades weren't designed to be
pulled forward. When they are, there's tremendous stress on the neck and upper-back muscles. That can lead to chronic upper-back and
neck pain.
The shoulder-joint socket is on the outer edge of the shoulder blade. Its resting position is known as the plane of the scapula, which
is approximately 30 degrees forward from the plane across the back. As the scapula moves farther forward, so does the socket. If the
socket is too far forward, the upper arm must rotate too much to achieve normal ranges of motion during a bench press, flye or throwing
motion. That causes too much stress on the ligaments and cartilage ring around the socket, which can produce an injury to those structure
and cause shoulder pain. Lastly, the forward-shoulder position reduce the available space between the collarbone, or clavicle, and the
first rib for the bundle of nerves traveling down the arms. That can cause compression of the nerves, as well as tingling, numbness,
weakness and pain in the arm, forearm, hand and fingers.
The solution for all of this is to reduce the amount of pee training you do so you reduce the forward pull on the shoulders. You don't
have to stop training your chest, but you should reduce the number of sets. The pecs must also be stretched. You can do that by standing
in a doorway with your upper arm parallel to the floor and the entire length of your forearm against the doorjamb. Do it with one arm at
a time. While maintaining the position, let your body rotate slightly away from the arm on the doorway.
The next part of the solution is to increase your training of the upper and middle back. Your back work should include dumbbell rows,
barbell rows, seated cable rows, seated machine rows (with a chest pad), seated reverse flyes, pulldowns, traditional rear-delt raises,
shrugs and rotator cuff training. Obviously you won't perform all of those movements in one workout, but you can add an extra movement
for the back as well as rotator cuff training. If you're training your back twice per week, you can select different but similar exercises
in each workout.
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