New to working out... any tips on exercises to improve posture?

I'm glad you're working out and I can tell you it's one of the best therapies of my life. Is to work out off and on but I stopped for a while. Two months ago I started back in the gym. I went from 30% body fat to 26% body fat. My clothes are fitting better and I'm feeling better myself. This is the third month and I'm noticing I'm getting more muscles in my body because people are commenting that I'm looking sexier.

Exercise alone will not make you look better you also have to watch her diet. If you eating junk food, soda, lots of sugar, lots of processed carbs, and other stuff that's not good for you the need to seriously consider removing it from your diet if you want better results.

As far as a personal trainers are concerned I have mixed views on them because I have had a few. Most personal trainers suck. Especially at the gym because the gym charges you anywhere between $60-$100 an hour and only pays a personal trainer $20 an hour. So it's a really good profit making business for the gym. Most of the personal trainers are not very good and are used to training people who don't know about working out and are overweight greatly. If you're new to the gym world it doesn't hurt to use somebody or your four times so you kind of feel comfortable.

Here's what I look for in a personal trainer. They have to be physically fit. I would hate to get trained by somebody who's 100 pounds overweight and I've seen this. It's a fat guy training somebody else how to lose weight while they're not following their own instructions.

They have to be helpful. I've seen so many buff guys and girls were personal trainers and they just walk around like they own the gym while the poor trainee walks behind them. A good personal trainer to help you and help you with the weights and everything.

They have to be positive. I had one personal trainer who have so much stuff on their mind and their always broken talking about not having enough money for rent. That's not our problem. The paperwork out at the gym and we want to be motivated with a happy person.

If the trainer is in a fitness competition then this is the one you really want. In order to be in a fitness competition you have to train so hard and so well. Not only that you diet has to be perfect. So having someone like this train you is the ultimate. I found someone like this but she doesn't work at the gym and she has her own private place.

set goals. I cannot stress this enough. Set measurable goals that you can track and follow and adjust and see where your progress is that. I mean what's the purpose of you go to the gym? Just so you have a better posture? If you lose all that extra fat around your stomach and body, gain muscle, your body will automatically go to a better posture. Find out what's the average wait for somebody your height. Find out what's your percent body fat. The most important question is what is your goal in terms of how you want to look. Once you figure this out and have written all the stuff down you be in a much better place and achieving your goal.

When I started I read 178 pounds with a 30% body fat. My goal is to be 150 pounds with a 15% body fat. I have totally changed my diet. I work out five days a week. And I use a personal trainer one day a week as a motivational coach.

When we want something really bad we will achieve it. Good luck with everything my friend

 

Working out will naturally increase your posture and bring everything back into alignment. You will develop very good posture after only a few weeks of lifting weights if you focus on two things: GOING SLOWLY WITH EACH REP, and MAINTAINING PROPER FORM. Secondly, go easy on your body. Don't load an excessive amount of weight. Focus only on these three exercises: bench press, straight bar bicep curl, and squats. If you're working with a personal trainer, he will instruct you how to do these. If you don't have a PT, ask someone at the gym to help you. Make sure you back is straight when you are doing the exercises.

If I were you I'd subscribe to this guy:



He gives excellent advice on pretty much everything.

 

Are you able to find some pictures of the postural problems you have? (They don't have to be pictures of you, just from Google images)

If so I can help you out. Glutes you can strengthen with Romanian Deadlifts and Barbell Hip Thrusts.

Shoulders are actually split into three different heads, and different exercises work these different heads, so this is why I'd need to see a picture of the problem, as depending on the issue, one exercise might be great or it could actually make the problem worse if one part of your shoulder is over-developed.

A lot of the time postural problems with shoulders come in the form of rounded shoulders. To know if you have rounded shoulders, stand up straight, with your hands by your sides. Which way are your hands/palms facing? If your palms are facing your sides, you don't have rounded shoulders. If your palms are facing backwards, you have rounded shoulders.

Rounded shoulders are caused by tight or over-developed chest muscles, and underdeveloped rear deltoid muscles (the back part of the shoulder muscle) and lats (upper back muscles). You can do some chest stretches to loosen your chest muscles, and work on your rear delts and lats by doing compound exercises that involve both like barbell rows and pullups.

The arches in your feet having "collapsed in" just sounds to me like you have flat feet. I think the best way to deal with that is wearing insoles designed for people with flat feet.

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As far as starting out working out though, rather than focusing too much on specific muscles, I'd rather suggest picking up a solid beginner full body routine. If you haven't trained before, then most of your muscles will be pretty weak right now - so training your whole body will likely iron out any kinks and imbalances and help massively with your posture, provided said training uses a balanced program.

I suggest Fierce 5, which is the program I'm doing right now. Normally I'd give a whole list of suggestions, but the reason I'm suggesting Fierce 5 and Fierce 5 only is the author of the program specifically designed it for avoiding postural issues and muscular imbalances. He balanced the ratio of exercises for each muscle in such a way as to keep things in symmetry and avoid any problems down the line. So it may be perfect for your needs. Also, it's one of the programs that sacrifices the regular Deadlift for the Romanian Deadlift - meaning you get a really good glute/hamstring exercise in there which'll be helpful for your weak glutes.

You can find the routine here: http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=159678631

If you pick another routine just make sure it has a good balance. You want a balance between pushing and pulling exercises, i.e. if you're benching, you want to be doing some corresponding back exercises like rows and pullups. If you're doing front squat which is quad heavy, you want to be doing some corresponding work on the hamstrings like romanian deadlifts. If you're doing overhead press, you want to do some corresponding rear delt work like reverse flies. Failing to keep that balance will result in a whole heap of postural problems, so it's worth having that balance right from the start.