with the off-season approaching, I was considering to use it in order to do some strength training. Although there are many resources regarding this (also in this forum and the TR-blog), I was thinking to also incorporate exercises to improve my posture (I spend a lot of time seated at a desk or driving a car and my posture – although not terrible – could be significantly improved).
Any ideas or pointers about general resources, specific posture exercises, or suggestions on how to adapt/extend a “classic” strength training for cyclists routine to incorporate that objective as well would be very welcome!
I worked on this a while ago and found 2 things really helped. “Face pulls” using a cable machine as a strength training exercise. Second was using a lacrosse ball (and hard foam roller) to do some massaging/release work for the pectoral muscles. Tight pectorals tend to pull the shoulders forward and was the main contributor to that kyphotic posture for me I found.
+1 on face pulls with a band, during the day in my home office, combined with band pull aparts. I’ve also done dumbbell rows in my office.
At the gym I like doing twice a week heavy weight on cable pulls.
Those really really helped with posture and allowed me to ride >50% of the time in the drops on a 12+ hour double century back in 2017. And formed the basis of progressing to barbell work.