A Full-Body Circuit That’ll Help Your Posture

The workout below is for Day 5 of the Just Enough Workout, a four-week workout plan. Today’s routine is pretty great on its own, but you can also check out the full program right here or browse the calendar here. If you’d like to sign up to receive daily emails featuring these workouts, you can do that here.

We hope you enjoyed your first rest day of the Just Enough Workout and are feeling ready to move again! We have another full-body strength workout on the agenda for today—one that’s going to target the all-important muscles at the back of your upper body.

Building strength in the back of your body is super important, especially for people who spend a lot of their day-to-day sitting with not-so-great posture, which can cause your shoulders to hunch and round. But if the muscles in the back of your upper body—like your rhomboids, lats, rotator cuff, rear deltoids, and low-to-mid traps—are strong enough, they can help counteract that forward hunch, as SELF reported previously.

So for today’s routine, we’re going to focus on back-of-body muscles and core, which plays a role in posture too. In Just Enough Movement, you’ll hone in on the small muscles in the back of your shoulders and the muscles that surround them with the bent-over T-raise. Because a strong core is important for stabilization and standing up tall, you’ll also work your rectus abdominus (the muscles that run across the front of your abdomen) and transverse abdominus (your deepest core muscles) with the supine Pilates toe tap. Along with hitting your leg muscles, the sumo squat gives an extra emphasis to your glutes, which—although you may not realize it—is also part of your core.

All those bodyweight moves are great for waking up your muscles and fostering a solid mind-muscle connection. But if you’re looking for a bigger challenge, you can give the five-exercise Just a Little More Movement circuit a try: You’ll be elevating the bodyweight T-raise with the bodyweight I-Y-T raise, which hits a larger area in your back, since you’ll be working with three letters (or positions) instead of just the one, and a weighted row variation to work those backside muscles even more. We’ll also be including an alternating reverse lunge to turn this combo into a full-body routine and add extra targeted glute work!

Just Enough Movement Directions:

Complete each exercise for 30 seconds, then rest for 30 seconds.
After completing all three exercises, rest for up to 60 seconds. That’s 1 round.
Complete 2–3 rounds.

Just Enough Movement Exercises: