Dom McKay musculoskeletal therapist today i'm going to teach you how to fix
your rounded shoulders but first of all let's have a look at what causes rounded
shoulders and some of the conditions associated with this sort of posture
the muscles in your body are essentially what control your posture for every
group of muscles you have there's also an opposing group which perform the
exact opposite action for example your biceps and your triceps which act to
flex and extend the arm at the elbow when it comes to posture muscle groups
wi thin the neck shoulders upper back and chest often become imbalance and create
what's called rounded shoulders this is most often seen in office workers who
stare at a screen for hours and hours every day but it's also commonly found
within the general population so there are also other postural issues that
often go hand-in-hand with rounded shoulders such as a forward head posture
and a pronounced kyphosis now the reason for this is that the neck shoulders and
upper back really work very much as one unit
this group of postural issues is termed upper cross syndrome a simple way to
tell if you have rounded shoulders is to look at your thumbs with your arms
hanging by your sides so if the thumbs are pointing forwards then your
shoulders are in a neutral position if they're pointing towards each other
that means your shoulders are rounded if we look at the muscles that are
responsible for internally rotating the shoulders we start to understand what's
tight and therefore what needs stretching and lengthening in this case it's
the pecs and the lats by focusing the stretches on these areas we begin to
open up through the chest and allow those shoulders to sit back in a more
neutral position this will also change the position of
the head and neck which plays a crucial role in combating upper cross syndrome
and rounded shoulders okay so for this exercise you'll probably want to foam
roller you can kind of make do with rolled up towels but these things are a
dime a dozen so it's worth getting one I'd suggest getting a long one because
then you can fit the length of your spine on it so we begin by placing it on
the ground we're going to rely across it lengthwise so just making sure that the
tailbone is on the roller and also the head so begin by placing the hands palm
up by your sides and you'll feel a gentle opening through the chest here
and you can bring your hands out further as you go and that will increase the
stretch in the chest so at this point I start to really feel that stretch
across the front of the shoulders and into the chest the other thing that you
can do is bring the hands all the way above the head and this starts to create
extension through the thoracic which is one of the key factors in rounded
shoulders and upper cross syndrome and you can also just access that entire
range of motion
really start to open up through the chest and the shoulders so I'd suggest
holding this stretch for a couple of minutes a day at least so this next
stretch is an extension on the last one it's a lot stronger and it also focuses
more on the thoracic extension aspect of what we're trying to achieve so lying
the foam roller on the ground we're going to lie across it this time so try
and find that place in your back that just kind of really feels stuck and then
rolling the head backwards you might want to put a pillow behind this the
first time you try it but if you're quite flexible you should be okay just
to bring the head straight to the ground and then extend the arms up lie the
hands on the ground now as you do this you'll feel different vertebrae and more
stuck than others so you want to find those stuck areas and really focus on
that position and as that loosens off then you search for the next most stuck
vertebrae. you can also move your hands around in this and really find where
stretches the chest out the most
so this can also be held for two to three minutes or even longer and just
really trying to work on getting that extension through the upper back and
open it up through the chest so I'm going to show you a couple of other
really good stretches for the chest and the lats so the first one you would have
seen before which is a doorway stretch so basically putting your hand on the
doorway and just turning the body in the opposite direction so you should feel a
strong stretch from the shoulder all the way down you're trying to seek out every
single fiber of the pecs now the next one is my favorite lat stretch there's
lots of lat stretches but this is one I like to do so you begin by grabbing the
doorframe like so and then you use this left hand your bottom hands to push
against the doorframe and you're kind of leaning your weight back so you should
feel a really good stretch down here the whole time
and again these stretches can be held for any length of time but you know minimum
30 seconds up to 2 or 3 minutes is great these stretches will go a long way
to changing the muscular imbalances that leads to rounded shoulders in addition
to these have a look at some of our other videos that address the neck
specifically as this will help you deal with your upper cross syndrome in a more
complete manner and therefore combat neck and shoulder issues there's a link
to my website in the description below post your comments I'm happy to answer
questions in that section and subscribe for more great videos and tips thanks
for watching