TEST:
Stand in a natural position and have a friend take a picture of your side profile. Look at where your chin is. If your chin is up slightly and aligns with your chest, then that’s a good sign. If your chin favors forward and juts out past your chest followed by your head, this is a sign that you might have rounded shoulders. EEK!
If you think of all the time you spend doing work on the computer, driving, scrolling through your phone, and even lifting babies, it’s no wonder that the chances of developing “mom posture” are high!
All of these activities (and more!) contribute to the rounding forward of your shoulders, creating tight muscles that cause a telltale “hunch.”
The hunched postures you continually adopt throughout the day, disrupt the normal balance of muscular activity in your shoulders.
In rounded shoulders, there is an imbalance of tension between the muscles that pull the shoulder blades forwards and the muscles that pull the shoulder blades backwards (and the ones pulling forward are winning the battle!)
This imbalance can further contribute to neck and shoulder injuries, pain and disability.
What we need to do:
Stretch some muscles, strengthen some muscles and do as your Coach Lorraine says, “SHOULDERS BACK, CHEST UP!”
Tight and/or Overactive muscles:
These muscles are PULLING the shoulder blades into the forward position.
(We need to Stretch/Release these muscles!)
- Pec major/minor
- Subclavius
- Latissimus dorsi
- Upper trapezius
- Serratus anterior
Weak and/or Inhibited muscles:
The following muscles ARE NOT PULLING the shoulder blades backwards into a neutral position. (We need to strengthen these muscles!)
- Mid/lower trapezius
- Rhomboids
And lastly, (and most importantly), we need to increase our awareness of this horrible posture and avoid it as much as possible!
Here is one of my favorite pectoral stretches that you can do at home:
Miami Women-Only Fitness Bootcamp 
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