9 Exercises to Improve Desk Posture and Slouching

Many people work at a desk all day. Science tells us that sitting for long periods of time is bad for overall health. Just one of the many issues is posture. While you can easily break up sitting with short standing or walking breaks, fixing posture requires more focus and strength. Try these simple exercises to strengthen the muscles that will help improve posture. 

Why Is Posture So Important? 

The way you hold your body matters. Unless you are lying down and completely relaxed, your musculoskeletal system is doing the work of holding you upright to some extent. How it does that can affect everything from your mood to physical health. 

Bad posture, whether standing or sitting, can cause or exacerbate many health problems: 

  • 9 Exercises to Improve Desk Posture and Slouching

  • Back pain and fatigue

  • Neck pain and fatigue

  • Poor spine alignment

  • Joint and spine degeneration

  • Poor circulation

  • Headaches

  • Low mood, depression, and anxiety

  • Digestive issues

The latter might be surprising, but it’s true. Poor posture after eating can lead to heartburn. Hunching over puts pressure on the stomach, which can force acid up into the esophagus. In some people, slouching can also contribute to incontinence or constipation. 

Everyone is susceptible to poor posture and its effects. But if you work at a desk all day, you might be more vulnerable. It’s easy to let posture slide into bad habits like slouching and craning your neck over the screen.

What Does Good Posture at a Desk Look Like? 

There are many elements to good sitting posture. Awareness of the best positioning for your body is the first step to better posture: 

  • Your back should be straight and neutral, not leaning forward or back.

  • Make sure your spine has three natural curves: inward at the neck and lower back, and outward in the upper back. None of these should be exaggerated.  

  • Situate your butt so that it touches the back of the chair. 

  • Relax your shoulders down. They should not be tensed upward or pulled back too far. 

  • Look for 90 degree angles at your hips, knees and elbows. Your feet should be flat on the floor and your eyes level with the computer screen. This part of posture is more to do with adjusting your chair, desk, and computer to get the angles right. 

5 Exercises to Improve Desk Posture

Many people slouch because they don’t pay attention to form when sitting. Another big issue is strength. You need to engage core and upper body muscles to hold your trunk, neck, and head upright. When those muscles fatigue, you slouch. The stronger these muscles are, the easier it is to hold good posture for longer. 

1. Y Raise

This exercise will build strength in the scapular muscles of the shoulder, the upper back, and the middle back. These are important for sitting upright, supporting the spine, and preventing shoulder slumping. 

To do a Y raise, lie with your stomach on top of a stability ball. Your legs should be extended fully behind you and your arms out in front of you at a little bit of an angle, so that your body looks like a Y. 

Lift your arms up and squeeze the shoulder blades together as you exhale. You can start without weights, if necessary, but progress by using light dumbbells. 

2. Halo

This move strengthens the shoulders but also improves mobility in the joints, which is important for good posture. Do the exercise standing to also work and stabilize core muscles. 

To do halos, stand with feet about hip-width apart. Hold one dumbbell with one hand on each end just in front of your chest. Lift the weight up and move it slowly in a circle around your head. Make the circle clockwise and then counterclockwise for one rep. 

3. Farmer’s Carry

This is a great overall exercise for posture, both standing and sitting. It works the arms, back, abdominal muscles, and glutes. 

A farmer’s carry is a simple move that anyone can do as long as you match the weights to ability level. Simply hold one weight in each hand, and with good posture, walk about 25 feet to start. 

To get the most benefit out of this move, really focus on posture. Keep the spine neutral and shoulders back. Keep the head up, as if walking with a book balancing on top of it. Use the heaviest weights you can hold while maintaining good posture. Progress by adding distance and time. 

4. Plank with Row

Do a variety of types of rowing exercises to strengthen the shoulders and upper back for good posture. Adding a row to a plank gets you more bang for your buck. You’ll work your entire core, improve stability and balance, and build the shoulders and upper back. 

Start in a plank on your hands in good form, which means a straight line from your head to your heels with no sagging. With a weight in one hand and your elbow tight against your body, do an upward row. Reach the elbow as high as you can and squeeze. Repeat on the other side. 

5. Dead Bug

When done correctly, this exercise strengthens most of the core, including deep abdominal muscles and the stabilizing muscles along the spine. These muscles are essential for spinal support and good posture but are difficult to reach with typical core exercises. 

Lie on your back with your arms extended straight up toward the ceiling. Lift your legs up and bend your knees. You should have a 90-degree angle at the hip and knee joints. Carefully and slowly extend the right arm back over your head while you extend the left leg out, straightening at the knee and hip. Repeat with the left arm and right leg. 

To really hit the deep muscles on this exercise, tilt your pelvis to press your lower back into the mat. You should not be able to slide your hand between your lower back and the mat. 

Bonus – Stretching Exercises to Improve Desk Posture

Strengthening the right muscles is essential to better posture but stretching helps too. You need strong, flexible muscles and joints to hold yourself in a healthy posture.

Sitting with good posture, tilt your head from one side to the other, holding a stretch for several seconds on each side. Also, try rolling your neck in a complete circle in both directions. 

  • To open up a hunched-over chest, stand with your arms behind your back. Clasp your hands and lift them as high as you can to get a stretch across the chest. 

  • Stretch out your shoulders by reaching one hand around to your back and reaching it up between your shoulder blades. Repeat with the other hand or do them together. You might find one arm is more mobile than the other. 

  • While sitting at a desk, twist to each side, looking over each shoulder to stretch the spine.

  • Good posture while sitting is a matter of strength, flexibility, and joint mobility. Use these exercises and stretches to work on your own desk posture!

References

Why Is Sitting so Bad for Us? Yale Medicine. (2019). Retrieved 15 August 2022, from https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/sitting-health-risks.

Nair, S., Sagar, M., Sollers, J., 3rd, Consedine, N., & Broadbent, E. (2015). Do slumped and upright postures affect stress responses? A randomized trial. Health psychology : official journal of the Division of Health Psychology, American Psychological Association, 34(6), 632–641. https://doi.org/10.1037/hea0000146

3 surprising risks of poor posture - Harvard Health. Harvard Health. (2021). Retrieved 15 August 2022, from https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/3-surprising-risks-of-poor-posture.

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