My wife has shit tier posture. It drives new up the wall. I decided to get her into barbell exercises as a low key way to help fix it. (Also help her with general fitness and losing weight after having our first son)
Her posture is most certainly equivalent to the left photo.
Anyways, I have her doing squat/overhead/deadlift/bench. So far it’s been an okay experience. She can deadlift perfectly fine, and ironically enough during the lift she exhibits perfect posture. With bench and overhead she does alright. Overhead, her posture isn’t particularly great, but she does the lift in a way that I think is okay.
Now the last thing, the squat, has been a huge fucking nightmare. Because she slouches so bad, it seems I can’t coach her to pick the bar up properly. Her shoulders are rolled too far forward, and her upper back is way too rounded to properly pick up the barbell. I own Starting Strength, and I low bar squat myself (so I know what her holding th bar should look like), but for the life of her physiology, she can’t push her chest up enough to properly grab the bar and set it under her scapular spine. She always has extended wrists during the lift and carries the weight through her arms, and is now having pain in her elbow “because holding the bar hurts.”
I’m at my wits end. Should I drop the squats in favor of things she can do? Or is there a way to work into proper position?
And finally, what exercises will help strengthen her to help her posture not look like shit?
maybe try hack or front squats? I think squats are too valuable to give up completely
Michael Richardson
>I own Starting Strength
Ian Collins
I think he means he owns a copy of the book
Connor Taylor
But to actually help you...
Get her to do shit loads of face pulls, and possibly (probably) just goblet squat until the face pulls fix her
Oliver Gomez
Ahh fair enough lad
Michael Garcia
Try suggesting (or getting one of her friends to) that she goes to a chiropractor for general wellness or some other bullshit. Chiropractor will automatically do the work for you.
Ayden Edwards
Lmao. I was in chiropractic school.
I quit because I found it to be largely bullshit. And i’m Not paying for that shit.
(Yes there are legitimate uses of chiropractic, such as joint mobilization, but 90% of it is bullshit)
John Peterson
I’m a home gym master race. Do you reckon rows will have a similar effect?
Jack Robinson
Strength training can make her posture worst if the flexibility issues aren't dealt with. Just from looking at the picture I'm guessing tight chest muscles, probably causing the shoulders to roll forward, and tight hamstrings - often caused by sitting too long on the computer or driving.
This is mostly an issue of whether she has good knowledge of her own anatomy. My guess is she isn't drawing power from her core because she's not aware of it yet
Anyways, I recommend this video for beginners, it helps with flexibility and muscle awareness. I like this video over other ones because the instructor constantly emphasizes keeping the core muscles tight, which will in turn help her with her lifts.
Hack squats are a good idea. Thank you. Her weights are light still so I think she can manage
Matthew Gonzalez
lifting weights won't fix posture dummy
Jason Sullivan
I'm pretty sure they can user...
Jace Nguyen
Sitting with the baby all day has played hell on her.
Thanks for the video. I’m watching now
Camden Murphy
Yea, should help. Might be best to increase row volume to double that of the presses. Maybe lower press volume for now, bench for certain.
Stretching will help to.. search “unhunch shoulders” on youtube for this, look at some stuff there Goblet squats tho! A lot to be said for them
Josiah Roberts
Have her do alot of reverse dumbbell flys and alot of back work, like rows and pullups. Make sure to have her do alot of shoulder work as well so her shoulders dont look stupid (eg have her to front raises, side lateral raises, and the reverse DB flys )
Aiden Myers
>tight hamstrings - often caused by sitting too long
Tight hip flexors, hamstrings will be lengthened from sitting so dont stretch them,
Wyatt Ross
No dumbbells to work with unfortunately. I understand your train of thought though.
Josiah Garcia
Goblet squats plates, oughtta work right?
I think you’re right about limiting bench. She’s excelling a little too much in it at the moment. Which would be great, if her back had any strength.
In that case for the rows have her use a wide(ish) grip and slightly flare the elbows to get the rear delts and stuff
Justin Brown
Buy a band and let her do face pulls
Jace Taylor
Ah yea, not the best but it’ll ok for a while. Depends how strong she is, but goblets are excellent for anyone, esp. noobs Investing in a heavy kettlebell would be good if you like spending money, but not at all needed
Jonathan Flores
Thanks for the advice. Don’t want to miss anyone.
I think I got enough info to try some things differently and help her out.
This is my last post, thanks again.
Gavin Gray
Mostly meant it as a sort of trick to have someone else tell her that she needs to correct her posture since that's pretty much all they do anyway
