27
Total Gym = Posture Improvement
This post was written by GRAVITY Instructor Suzanne Sweeney. She has 20 years experience in the fitness industry as a Group Fitness Instructor, Personal Trainer and Pilates instructor. She uses a holistic approach, considering health, fitness, nutrition and stress management to design workouts. You can reach her at zenfit@gmail.com.
Hi again! Total Gym enthusiasts and trainers! I’m Suzanne Sweeney, certified Gravity instructor, Pilates and personal trainer. I’d like to share some tips and exercises that are extremely valuable to improving posture. I have observed that aside from the all too common lower back complaints, the shoulder girdle complex can be a problem area for muscular imbalance and postural pain syndromes. When the muscles of the shoulder girdle are imbalanced, the mid back is weak and the chest and shoulder muscles are often too tight. This creates a lack of ability to draw the shoulders back and down while the neck muscles overwork and can create pain and discomfort.
The Total Gym is an invaluable tool to gain back flexibility and strength in just the right spots. Daily activities that contribute to forward posture like desk work, computing and driving make it difficult to achieve upright or neutral posture. Trying to do any kind of exercise with this type of posture can increase the risk of injury to the muscles and connective tissue. The varied angular resistance of the Total Gym glide board allows us to stretch and strengthen the correct muscles to achieve a more neutral, pain free posture.
I’d like to use 2 specific positions and shoulder movements on the Total Gym to help us find this neutral posture. Shoulder retraction and protraction, elevation and depression. We will focus on feeling isolated movement of the shoulder blades, meaning that the rest of the body is stabilized in neutral posture. For these exercises, set up the Total Gym glide board no higher than level 3 (third hole from bottom). In the first pair of pictures I am sitting backward holding the pulley handles. Notice in the first picture you can read the Gravity logo on my shirt and in the second picture the material has been “pinched” together. To achieve this, sit with a “tall” feeling, abdominals in and arms kept straight. Let the weight pull your arms forward without slouching and dropping the chest. Then pull the shoulder blades toward one another so it feels like you are trying to hold an orange between them. Hold this position strongly and try some rowing and bicep exercises. Avoid lifting the shoulders toward the ears. If this is challenging for you or feels like limited movement is available, it will improve with practice.
SHOULDERS PROTRACTED FORWARD
SHOULDERS RETRACTED BACKWARD
In this next pair of pictures, using the wing attachment, I am lying prone holding the handles with arms once again extended. In this position keep legs slightly apart and externally rotated, lengthen the whole body. Press the hips down engaging the thighs and the butt. Keep the abdominals pulled in. Press forward moving the glide board up and feel the shoulders come toward your ears, then let your body weight take the glide board down and your shoulders away from your ears. Try to hold this position while doing some shoulder presses. Again there may not be a lot of movement at first but add these little exercises in during your workout and you’ll be feeling taller and stronger. Keep up the good work!
SHOULDER BLADES DEPRESSED DOWNWARD
SHOULDER BLADES ELEVATED UPWARD
