Strengthening your back muscles is important as these muscles enable you to stand up straight, they support and protect your spine and help to reach, pull and extend your arms and torso.
Muscle Workouts
Muscle workout: calves
Calf muscles are located in the back of your leg, just below your knee and stabilise your ankles and feet. Doing calf muscle exercises can provide a more stable foundation for your ankles and can help prevent ankle rolling.
Muscle workout: biceps
Biceps are found on the front of the upper arm between the shoulder and the elbow. Bicep muscles are essentially used in lifting and pulling movements and help bend the forearm towards the upper arm as well as turning the palm forward or upward.
Muscle workout: deltoids
The deltoid muscle is the rounded, triangular shaped muscle on the top of the shoulders. The deltoids are responsible for lifting the arm and helping the shoulder to move.
Muscle workout: chest
Having a strong chest helps to improve the strength in your back muscles and maintain a good posture. Your chest muscles are used for moving your arms across your body and up and down as well as pushing the body away from the arms, as you do when you do push-ups.
Muscle workout: hamstrings
Hamstrings are the muscles located at the back of your thigh that run from your hip to behind your knee. Hamstrings make it possible to extend your leg straight behind your body and bend it at your knee. Healthy hamstring muscles should be strong and flexible to easily lengthen and contract your leg.
Strength training exercises
Challenging your muscles with strength training exercises 2 or 3 times each week can improve the strength and tone of your muscles.
Stretching: an illustrated guide
Stretching exercises encourage lengthening of your muscles and their associated tendons, and oppose the shortening and tightening of muscles that can occur immediately after vigorous exercise, and as a product of ageing and inactivity.
