Maximum Potential Calisthenics

Improving My Posture – Rumble Roller

Continuing my series of posture related posts, another way I am attempting to improve my posture is by using the rumble roller everyday to stretch my upper back. For those of you who don’t know what the rumble roller is, this is it below.

Simply it is a foam roller except that it is coated in hard spikes to get deep into the muscle. 
The first exercise that I do is to lye on it with my arms over my head and my bum on the floor, it used to take a few minutes of doing this before my head would touch the floor but this happens straight away now as my back muscles are starting to loosen up a little.

To make this more difficult I elevate it using pillows, one pillow isn’t enough as I can still touch the floor with my head but with 2 I’ve still got some way to go. I typically hold this stretch for at least a minute.

Finally both to test how I’m progressing and to finish off the stretch I do a bridge, this is without a doubt the best bridge I’ve done, and there’s no way I can do it without a good few minutes of work with the rumble roller. My shoulders are still quite tight and you can see that I’m going on my tiptoes to get higher and try to get my hands closer to my feet, really I should be moving my arms past my head but I don’t yet have the flexibility to do this.

This really is a great stretch and exercise to do after sitting at a computer all day, it really loosens up the muscles and makes my back feel a lot better.

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