The Key to Maintain a Good Body Posture as We Age

Part 1

This week’s blog is written by Vintage Fitness personal trainer and physiotherapist, Cristina. Cristina has 19 years of experience as a physiotherapist in Brazil and has a 2 year fitness degree from Humber College.

As we age, most of us start adopting a Kyphotic posture. Trunk bend forward, rounded shoulders and Forward Head are some of the signs of a kyphotic Posture. The causes of Kyphosis can be related to weakness in the spinal bones, osteoporosis, and bad posture during daily activities, and at work. In addition, Kyphosis is more common in women. In some cases, when this posture get worse the person will adopt a hyperkyphotic posture, which means an exaggerated curvature, that can cause pain, limited physical function, body image problems leading to social isolation, which means overall reduced quality of life.

In order to help prevent and minimize kyphotic posture, exercise, posture awareness and good posture behaviour during daily activities are highly recommended.

Exercises

Which type of exercise can help minimize Kyphotic curvature?

Strength your upper back muscles and exercises that open your chest can help to minimize this kind of posture. See below the exercises that will improve your posture.

Straight-arm shoulder blade squeeze

1. Sit or stand tall. Relax your shoulders.
2. With palms down, hold your elastic tubing or band straight out in front of you.
3. Start with slight tension in the tubing or band, with your hands about shoulder-width apart.
4. Slowly pull straight out to the sides, squeezing your shoulder blades together. Keep your arms straight and at shoulder height. Slowly release.
5. Repeat 10 times.
6. 3 sets

Next week Cristina will advice us on new exercises to improve our posture as we age.

Good Luck!

Erin

Vintage Fitness

Click to Call    416-951-7978

Vintage Fitness is an in home personal training company in Toronto, Canada.  We specialize in energizing the lives of people over 50 with exercise.