You can't hold a position your muscles aren't strong enough to keep. Roll out what’s tight, then build the muscles that hold you upright — about fifteen minutes.
How often: Most days of the week. This routine is light enough to do daily, and daily is where the change comes from — the muscles you're training have to work all day, so they need practice more than they need intensity.
Before you start, find out what your posture is actually doing. This takes a minute and tells you which of the five exercises matters most for you.
Set up: Stand with your heels about two to three inches from a wall, feet hip-width apart. Let your backside and your shoulder blades rest against the wall. Stand normally — don't correct yourself. Then answer these three.
The wall test is a quick screen, not a diagnosis. Posture varies with the time of day, what you did that morning, and whether something hurts. If any position here causes pain, skip it and let us take a look.
Rolling the upper back and chest first makes the positions in Part 2 easier to reach. Follow along with the video — then go straight into the five exercises while you still have the extra range.
No foam roller? Start with Part 2 — the five exercises are what actually change how you hold yourself. Rolling makes them easier and more comfortable, but it works by temporarily easing tight tissue, and that effect fades within the hour. That's exactly why it comes before the strengthening rather than instead of it.
Desk posture creates a predictable pattern: the chest and front of the shoulders get tight, and the upper back and deep neck muscles get weak. These five address both halves of it.
Fifteen minutes at home doesn't outvote eight hours in the same position. Run these stretches once or twice through the workday — then fix the four things below, which cost nothing at all.
The best posture is the next one. Standing up for even 30 seconds every half hour does more than sitting up straight for an hour — the problem is stillness more than it's slouching.
The top of your monitor should sit at about eye level, an arm's length away. If you work on a laptop, put it on a stack of books and use a separate keyboard. This one change removes most of what causes forward head posture.
Looking down at a phone loads your neck far more than looking straight ahead. Lift the phone toward your face instead of dropping your head toward the phone.
Feet flat on the floor, knees and elbows at roughly right angles, and your lower back supported. If your chair can't do that, a rolled towel behind your lower back is a genuinely good substitute.
General education from Summit Chiropractic & Physical Therapy — not a substitute for an individual evaluation. Stop any exercise that causes pain, and check with us first if you have a shoulder or neck injury, or numbness and tingling into an arm.
