Do THIS and fix rounded shoulders forever.

fix rounded shoulders rounded shoulders Oct 04, 2024

Are you looking for an exercise routine that fixes your rounded shoulders?

If you look around the internet for even 10 minutes, you'll find hundreds of different exercises that allegedly fix this problem.

How do you know which exercises to do? And for how long? When are your shoulders “fixed?”

These are questions I struggled with when I was trying to resolve my own rounded shoulders.

I did all the popular exercises out there but I eventually realized that these exercises were not going to make the permanent changes I was looking for.

I’m an attorney, dad and business owner. I don’t have time to do a bunch of exercises that don't have a clear purpose behind them.

If you’re a modern-day adult, you’re probably busy too. I don’t want you wasting your time either!

The good news is that you don’t need to spend a ton of time exercising to fix your rounded shoulders.

You have to be consistent, yes, but that does not mean you need to spend hours a week doing complicated shoulder exercises.

The key is understanding what movements you need to get stronger in. Once you develop strength in these movement patterns, your shoulders will naturally start sitting in a healthier position.

Before I tell you what works, let’s examine what won't work.

The WRONG way to fix rounded shoulders

Making changes in the body is all about challenging it. If you don’t continue to add resistance in some way, your body won’t get stronger.

All those popular corrective exercises out there have value but only to a certain point.

The problem I see many people make is that they spend too much time on light and gentle exercises.

These types of exercises - like banded pull aparts (which I demonstrate in the next section) - can help you understand what certain movements should feel like.

But once you get an understanding of how these movements feel, your time will be better spent loading these movements with some kind of resistance.

This will build stronger and more resilient shoulders - which is what will make permanent changes in your posture.

Your shoulders are rounded for a reason. This is how your body fights gravity and responds to stress.

The way to change this is by building resilience despite the presence of external stressors. A much simpler way to explain this is to build more strength in your back and shoulders.

Exercises for rounded shoulders

There is no perfect exercise or set of exercises out there for anything, including rounded shoulders.

This is why I encourage you to look at the below exercises as examples to get you started. If they don’t feel right after a few training sessions, try another exercise on the list or find another one to experiment with.

I’ve broken down the exercises into two sections. The first section are correctives that will help you get a better feel for pulling your shoulders back and extending your spine.

The second section will include strength exercises that will improve your ability to extend your spine as well as increase general pulling strength.

Spend some time on the correctives but again, the sooner you integrate the strength exercises, the better.

Corrective Exercises

Strength Exercises

Programming & Closing Thoughts

I recommend you select 1-3 of the strength exercises and spend a few months on them. Increase the volume each week - either with more weight or reps.

For training sessions, perform each strength exercise 1x a week, for 3-4 sets and 4-10 reps. I also recommend you do 1 set of 50% of your max on off-days to maintain you strength. So if you can do 3 sets of 4 pull-ups, do 1 set of 2 pull-ups on off-days.

You can also do the correctives on off-days and as warm ups before your strength session.

One last piece of advice is to reflect on why you want to fix your rounded shoulders. Is it because of aesthetic reasons? Pain? Discomfort?

One thing I can promise you is that you won't see a difference in how your shoulders look for some time. It will happen once you get stronger but this will take time.

Building a more resilient body that moves with more grace is a lifetime process. In my own movement practice, the pursuit of better movement is now what helps me decide which exercises I should focus on.