Find Your Voice Seattle

In every lesson I give, I always start with stretching and a little body warmup and activation to improve singing posture. When warming up for a performance or band practice, I run myself through those same exercises I give to my students. Why? Because as it turns out, your voice is inside of your body. The way you hold yourself and spinal alignment make a huge difference in how you are able to make sounds. While singing doesn’t require the athleticism of running a 5k or lifting weights, it does use your muscles! It engages your core and lots of the little muscles all around your trunk, including your back. It requires balance, and if you stand while singing, engages your legs and glutes as well.

So how does posture impact your voice?

When you are standing or sitting in a nice neutral, supported singing posture, your skeleton is doing pretty much all of the work to hold you upright. This frees up the muscles in your throat, face, neck, and core to be used more easily while singing. When your head is being supported by your spine in neutral posture, the muscles in your throat can just hang down from your skull rather than be in partial tension to support the weight of your head. With your muscles free to dedicate themselves only to singing, you’ll be able to more easily hit higher and lower notes without tension, and you may even find that your range increases.

Exercises to Counteract Internal Rotation

The shrimp position represents both internal shoulder rotation and forward head thrust, both of which can inhibit your ability to sing with ease and agility. Here are a couple exercises that I like to use to help prevent my shoulders from falling forward when I’m standing neutrally for good posture. You’ll notice that most of these are targeted toward your thoracic spine (the part of your back between your shoulder blades) and not the shoulder itself. This is because that upper/mid back muscle control is a major part of what helps you hold yourself upright! Without those muscles being able to get engaged, it’s easy for the shoulders to slip forward.

A note: I am not a doctor or a physical therapist. Only do these exercises to your own comfort level — NOTHING in here should hurt to do! If you aren’t sure about something, consult a trusted medical professional in your life.

Shoulder Shrug Circles

Standing in an upright posture with your hands relaxed at your side, shrug your shoulders up, back, and down. Relax completely, and repeat 4-5 times. This wakes up your upper back and gives your shoulders a chance to recover from the forward position most of us spend our days in.

Torso Twists

Ball your hands into loose fists, and touch your fists together in front of you with your forearms parallel to the floor. (I lovingly call this the Avatar pose since it’s how Aang holds his hands when meditating.) From this position, turn as far to the left as is comfortable, return to center, and turn as far to the right as comfortable. Try to keep your head in line with your hands rather than looking over your shoulder in the direction you’re turning. Repeat the twist 5-10 times, or until you feel like your back starts to loosen up. This engages your core as well as gets your spine and back a little more limber.

Tabletop Thoracic Spine Rotations

Begin in a quadruped/tabletop position with your knees on the floor under your hips and your hands palms-down under your shoulders. If your wrists are sensitive, try resting on your fists or hold on to a dumbbell on the floor instead. Place your right hand behind your head, and hold your arm parallel to the floor. Reach your right elbow to the ceiling as far as is comfortable, then bring it to meet the inside of your left elbow. If you can’t touch your right elbow to your left arm, just go as far as is comfortable. Do 10 on the right side, then switch arms and do 10 on the left side. This will help the muscles in your mid back get strong enough to hold you nice and upright easily while becoming more flexible.

Prone Thoracic Extensions

Lie face down on the floor with your arms palms-down beside you. Lift your head, shoulders, and arms up off the floor and hold for 10-15 seconds. It doesn’t have to be a huge movement, but you should feel the middle of your back engage during this exercise. Repeat 3-5 times.

Scapula Push-ups

As someone with the equivalent of overcooked spaghetti for arms and pancakes for pecs, I cringe when I see the word push-up. But don’t worry, this is something even I can do!

Start in the same tabletop position as the thoracic spine rotations. Now, push your palms into the floor and reach your upper back as high as possible. Then, lower your torso down through your shoulders in as straight a line as possible. (It will look something like this video.) If tabletop position becomes too easy over time, you can progress to a kneeling pushup position or a plank pushup position.

Exercises to Counteract Forward Head Thrust

Neck Rolls

Stand or sit in a neutral upright singing posture, and make a large circle with your nose 5-6 times. Reverse direction, and do another 5-6 neck rolls. This is one I almost always start with, since my neck is always tight!

Chin Thrusts

Once again, stand or sit in a neutral upright posture. Push your head forward as far as you comfortably can, then pull your head back and tuck your chin down. You want to give yourself as many little double chins as you can with this exercise! It will help lengthen and strengthen the back of your neck, and help you build awareness of where a neutral head position is for your body. Repeat 3-5 times.

Look Left/Look Right

Start neutrally upright with good posture, either seated or standing. Without turning your torso, look as far over your left shoulder as you can, and then as far over your right shoulder as you can. This is one repetition. Do about 5 of these.

Wall Lean Stands

Find a blank space on a wall or a door and stand facing away from it. Lean yourself onto the wall, and scoot your feet out (knees bent and quads lightly engaged) until you notice your lower back starting to touch the wall. Depending on your anatomy, you may need to tuck your pelvis more or less to achieve this flat-against-the-wall feeling. Pull your head all the way back to touch the wall. Now, relax your back and head so that your head is no longer touching the wall, and your lower back resumes a gentle curve. Don’t push your butt out to achieve this, just let your body relax a little and it will likely happen naturally.

Congratulations, you are standing with what is likely your body’s natural upright singing posture! Notice that your head doesn’t slam back against the wall. That’s normal! You don’t need to constantly crank your head back to achieve good posture. A well-supported spine will get you there with relaxation. Check in with how your body feels in this position. Try singing a couple notes or speaking a few sentences. Then, stand up away from the wall and see if you can recreate that feeling of support on your own.

I finished the exercises, now what?

Now, I don’t do every single one of these exercises every day. You certainly could if you wanted! But you don’t need to. Incorporate as many as you can throughout your day, or at least prior to singing, and you should notice your posture start to improve over time. You may even find this helps with other posture-related issues like hand numbness and neck/back pain. It certainly has for me!

Want to check out what some of these exercises look like in a one-on-one lesson? Want to improve your singing posture and gain more control over your voice? Send me a message and book a free trial lesson today!