Resistance Bands for Improved Posture & Shoulder Health

My neck and shoulders used to ache *daily*.

I thought it was just how it was going to be for the rest of my life. Or it was because I was too stressed out, and carrying too much tension in my shoulders.

Stretching didn’t help. Massages didn’t help. I was already pretty flexible in my shoulders, but they felt like there were a million knots inside of them.

I learned that often times when our shoulders and traps hurt, they don’t always need more stretching and mobility. In my case, I needed to create more *strength* & stability in my upper back.

At first, I thought lifting heavier would make my shoulders feel even more tight and uncomfortable. And that was the last thing I wanted.

But I learned more about how the muscles in our body work together to keep us mobile, stabile, and pain free.

Resistance Band exercises for posture, mobility, and shoulder health from Dara Griffiths. — Resistance Band exercises for posture, mobility, and shoulder health.

It turned out that building strength in my upper back was the first thing that actually helped reduce my shoulder pain.

It did take a lot of time and consistency. I implemented heavy weight lifting, mobility movements, and resistance band movements. All of these together made a huge difference in how I felt.

Now, a few years later, it’s like a weight was lifted off my shoulders! I no longer feel the constant stress and tension in my neck and shoulders. And I rarely feel pain there either.

Again, this did take a lot of patience. I was strength training 4 times per week, getting plenty of steps in, and making sure to include plenty of movements to strengthen my upper back and shoulders.

I think one thing that helped the most is being able to combine the resistance band exercises with my heavy lifting. You can only lift heavy so many times per week. But bands can be used much more often. So I was really able to concentrate on this area, without feeling too sore or fatigued.

The great thing about band movements is that you can do those much more often without causing too much exhaustion for the muscle due to the type of tension bands create. They can also help you to perform loaded stretches, which can be more impactful than just normal stretching.

I was able to perform my band movements 3 to 5 times per week. This allowed me to increase my frequency of working the muscle. And also helped me to feel more mobile and flexible there as well. In my opinion, using bands, along with the heavier lifts I was doing in the gym, helped me to improve my posture, and reduce my pain more quickly.

Here is a video of some of those banded movements that I used. I still use these today in warm ups and workouts all the time.