Back and shoulders postural training with Elena Rago

This time, I interviewed a female professional bodybuilder and discovered some of her workout exercises. I went to Body Evolution gym in Campodarsego (Padua, Italy) to meet Elena Rago, the iron woman who showed me the way of correct postural training for back and shoulders.

After having trained chest with Jarrod Curry and prepared the body to cosplay as Kratos with Jedidiah Weller, I thought it was time to give some space to the feminine counterpart. I usually interview fitness VIPs to understand their schedule, mindset and see what exercises they pick to reach their goals. So, this is what I did with Elena.

FROM CLASSIC POSTURAL TRAINING

TO A DAILY GYM EXERCISE:

HOW TO MAKE YOUR WORKOUT “POSTURAL”

Postural training? Something to avoid breaking your back

Those who suffer from muscular and postural issues, but also those who want to prevent them, can find a good solution in postural training. It is a kind of gymnastics which aims at healing and preventing many issues caused by muscle deficits. The main reasons why someone usually approaches postural training is because of:

• Incorrect positions, for example: if you work in front of a PC for many hours per day, you are forced to stay sitting and it might cause problems to the back;

• Repeated movements that can alter the strips of muscle.

These wrong bodily positions can produce scoliosis, neck pain and many other postural problems. So, postural training draws a bead on reeducating the body to keep a correct position and live healthier, mainly by working on the realignment of the backbone.

Postural training as an integrated method in the workout

Although we usually imagine approaching postural training with a fitball or PancaFit (a special patented fit bench invented by professor Daniele Raggi and exported all over the world with the “Raggi’s method”, a postural training which mixes the Mézières’s method and some body techniques of Feldenkrais and Bertherat), we can integrate the right movements and posture on a daily basis in our workouts.

Elena Rago didn’t show a “soft” gymnastics or stretching, indeed, she demonstrated that working out back and shoulders with the right technique, the whole body will benefit. To earn the benefits of postural training you don’t need special and patented equipment, just focus on movements, slow down the execution and voila.

FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE

Shoulders warm-up

Elena started by warming up her shoulders with the cable external rotation. Here are some tips to nail it:

1. Make sure the arm that is holding the cable is making a 90° angle, you should have the elbow at the height of your belly;

2. Line up the elbow with the cable and keep it close to the body;

3. Look straight ahead and don’t rotate the body;

4. The movement should be smooth and consistent. Don’t force it, just focus on the mobility and you’ll improve it day by day.

Before beginning the real workout, you should have warmed up your shoulders, traps, delts and arms. To do so, you can just practice some free body exercises or use a stick.

In the video, Elena performed the stick drills, because it’s one of the fastest ways to warm up multi-muscular areas and your arms are guided by the stick which adds just a pinch more difficulty to stimulate your muscles.

These exercises help you keep the right posture and prepare your muscles for the actual effort, preventing injuries and unexpected pain.

This is just a warm-up, not a CrossFit challenge, so don’t over exert yourself. You need fuel to break rocks later. Stick drills for 5 minutes and then, whoosh to the bar!

Working out back muscles: pull-ups

Elena continued with pull-ups, a fundamental exercise for lats and back. Personally, I consider it a medium-advanced exercise which needs prior muscular preparation. New comers usually use machines, cables and dumbbells to strengthen their lats before passing to the free body weight. The main reason for that is you can’t modulate the weight lifted, because you have to pull up your whole body. Indeed, if you’re already trained and want to spice it up, you can use a belt with a disc attached.

Heroes use an iron chain. Who are you?

By the way, pull-ups aren’t so easy to do and, also here, you should apply a correct posture. Elena’s advice is:

1. Don’t arch the lower back;

2. Activate the shoulder blades before folding your arms (you have to feel whether the right muscle is working properly or not, that’s why doing it slowly is important);

3. Push downwards and outwards your elbows while you push out the chest to the bar.

If you think pull-ups are too hard and annoying to be done, well… you should know they are used by the US Army in their 2-minute boot camp test to see whether you’re a citizen in good shape or not. So, the recruiting department, called Go Army, thinks that every healthy citizen should perform at least 10 consecutive pull-ups.

And what about you… Are you a healthy citizen?

Back again to our postural training! The mistakes you do are reflected in your body and athletes play humble before playing big.

Let’s say you don’t want use equipment, because it is for dolls, so practice pull-ups with an elastic band or an easy power machine.

Lat machine for those who don’t wave their elbows

With the same main rules listed before, you should be able to properly do almost all the exercises for the back. In fact, Elena followed the same upper body pose to perform the lat machine.

Here, focus on the movement of your shoulders and pay attention not to go in spinal kyphosis. According to your shoulders mobility, stop the bar at the height of the mouth/nose and try to keep the right posture.

Blasting rear delts

Elena gave some alternatives to improve rear delts. Some solutions are given by the incline dumbbell rear lateral raise or the cable rear delt fly (by training a single delt at a time).

Also a peck deck machine is very useful for this purpose, if you have it in the gym.

Now you know what exercises a professional bodybuilder picks to train back and shoulders

Elena Rago gave Chick’n’Mango these great exercises to start improving back and shoulders, but don’t forget the stretching!

If you don’t want to end like those huge turgid bodybuilders who walk around like Lego-men, you should include 15 to 30 minutes of stretching at the end of every workout and improve the mobility of your articulations.

About Elena Rago

Elena Rago won the Olympia Amateur in Abano Terme (an Italian town next to Padua, very close to the Euganean hills, you may have heard about because of its spas and thermal waters), a competition of the IFBB ProLeague.

She also won the Pro Card in the “Figure” category – 159 cm. So, now she is a Pro Figure of IFBB ProLeague.

She’s ambassador for the Tsunami Nutrition and works as a personal trainer. Kinda a geek, ah? If you want to know more about her, just text me or write a comment below and I’ll put you in contact with her!

WHAT DO YOU THINK

What’s your shoulder and back schedule? Can’t wait to hear your voice in the comments.

#Padua #Gym #Interview #Firesign #Italy #AlbertoCarniel #Powerlifting