Get beautiful posture like Cheryl

Fitness and Lifestyle Expert Sonia Palecek says:

CHERYL SMILES FROM HER CHEST TOO

Yes, she does. If you look how Cheryl’s holds herself during the shows as well as when out and about, you will notice she has a big wide smile across the front of her upper body. Practising ballet for many years surely helps here, as it becomes perfectly natural to keep shoulders rolled back and down and to keep chest open. It would not be very glam to have a beautiful person in fab clothes with sunken chest and tense neck and shoulders.

If you have not invested in ballet lessons yet, here are a few ways to achieve the look:

1)     CHEST STRETCH

Place one hand on the wall; you can have it chest level, higher or lower, as long as your shoulder does not lift during the stretch. With small steps start to turn away from that arm feeling a nice stretch across the chest and front of the shoulder. Breathe through the stretch and as the tissues start to soften and open, you may turn a little more. Keep breathing and opening from 1-2 minutes on each side. You may feel tingling in your arm at the end of the stretch. Do not worry, just gently turn back to the start position, take your hand off the wall and shake the arm gently.

2)     SHOULDER STABILITY

This is one of my favourite postural exercises which work on stabilizing the shoulder joint whilst promoting that lovely open and lifted chest. Think tall and proud here.

Sit on the mat, ball or chair, place a dynaband (light or medium resistance) across your mid back and tuck the bent elbows into the waist, palms facing up.

-         Breathe in and lengthen up through the spine as the forearms turn outwards and elbows stay tucked in the waist

-         Breathe out and maintain the outward rotation in the shoulders as you lengthen the arms allowing the elbows to move away from the waist

-         Breathe in and keep arms spiralling out as you draw the elbows back in the waist

-         Breathe out and move the forearms back to shoulder width apart.

! Throughout the exercise think you have a massive diamond pendant around your neck and you really want to show it off. !

Sonia Palecek