Are you noticing the development of your own Dowager’s Hump… the rounded upper back, particularly obvious when sitting? Your Dowager’s Hump can be due to some unlucky genetic lottery, however more and more these days, poor posture and tight or weak muscles tend to make this curve more accentuated. A Dowager’s Hump can lead to stiffness, neck pain and discomfort.
Last year I had the privilege to complete a 200-hour yoga course in Rishikesh, India. This was a great experience to help expand my knowledge on yoga whilst also picking up a lot of inspiration for exercise prescription in the clinic, and not to mention a few spicy curries!
Put simply, yoga is a practice which includes ways of moving and holding the body to enhance and maintain mobility, along with breath-work and mindfulness practices for overall wellbeing. This is a big topic but for purposes of this blog we’re going to focus in on one issue which I hear in the clinic a lot, and that’s poor posture or upper back rounding!
So what do the yogi’s do to help with this? Here are 3 postures I like which you may wish to incorporate into the daily routine:
- Cat-cow.
An oldie but a goodie, this one is for mobility and a way to explore how much your back is willing to bend in a safe and accessible way. Starting on hands and knees, see how much you can arch (cow) and round (cat) your back. Smoothly alternate between the two positions.
- Bridge pose (but not just any).
Try doing this with your hands interlaced underneath your hips and drawing your shoulder blades closer together to open up through the chest. Tight chest muscles pull our shoulders forward further rounding our upper back so this pose is a great way to stretch these out.
- Cobra (an active version) to activate your back muscles.
Lying on your stomach, gently tuck your chin towards your neck, lift up your chest from the yoga mat. You can lightly support your upper body with your hands besides your shoulders if necessary. Squeeze your bottom to look after your lower back and discover some back muscles you may not have felt in a while.
To keep your Dowager’s Hump controlled, give these yoga poses a try and I’m sure you’ll feel a bit of a difference over time, usually about 1 minutes worth of each one (broken up into small chunks as tolerated) is a good starting place. None of these should be painful or sore so please drop into the clinic if they are for some form pointers or you may just need a good loosen off with some hands-on treatment!
