Last week I talked about 2 steps to fixing your poor posture. I gave you two of my go-to techniques when I notice that I have been sitting for to long or feel my chest getting tight. It’s never something that you just wake up one day and notice this drastic change in your posture, it happens over time and if your not careful it will creep up on you. Similar to last weeks post, I want to dive in a little deeper with a few more key techniques you can apply to your program if posture has become an issue for you. Remember, we aren’t just doing this to look like we stand up taller, we want to get rid of back pain! In order to do that you need to look at the body as a whole and cover the different areas that play the biggest role in your pain. Today I want to cover a few more stretching and soft tissue techniques that focus on the front (anterior) part of your body. Like I have said before, poor posture can primarily be due to sitting at a desk or anything else that requires a forward flexed position over a long period of time. Ontop of that if you tend to focus on the chest when you hit the gym this only causes more tightness to occur.
Soft Tissue and Stretching
My top 2 basic chest stretches/soft tissue are the door frame chest stretch and the lacrosse ball chest compression. 
Chest stretch: This is done using any kind of wall or door frame bring the arm you want t be stretched first up to a 90 degree angle and place the arm against the wall from your elbow to your hands. Using the wall as a block your going to twist the body away from the bent arm. You should feel the pull across the entire chest.
Chest soft tissue: Remember, always do the soft tissue work before stretching. With this one you can do it two different ways. if you can handle it, pick up either a tennis ball, lacrosse ball or a soft ball and place the ball on the most lateral part of your chest. Basically the area before the armpit. This is where the muscle fibers are pulled and connected to the bone. Using the ball of choice, your going place the ball in the desired area between you and a wall. From there, using your body weight, press into the ball while relaxing your chest the best that you can. You may feel a little numbness after a while, once you start to feel that sensation make small changes either up or own from the starting point. Repeat this twice for 30-45 seconds in each position.
4 basic back exercises to fix poor posture.
Band Pull Apart Variations: These are a great way to warm the upper body and shoulders up before a workout but they always do a great job to hit the supporting muscles in the upper back. Check out the videos to see the different variations!
Reverse Fly: This exercise hits a group of muscles called the Rhomboids. From the top of the shoulder blade to the bottom, the muscle that you feel in-between your spine and your shoulder blade are the major and minor rhomboids. You want to strengthen these muscles which will result in a stronger posterior chain. 
Close Grip Row: You can do these with a single dumbbell or a cable machine. The goal is to keep the grip close to the middle of the body and focus on squeezing the shoulder blades together as you bring the bar to the chest and allowing the weight to stretch and pull the shoulders apart at the bottom of this exercise. I like to do the mobility drills either before or after a workout. Depending on how much time I have. If your posture is really bad I would suggest focusing more attention to these corrective issues before you jump into any program that may set you back even further. Hope you got something from this! Feel free to share with any of your friends and become a premium content member for free!! Talk to you soon,
William
