How to Strengthen Your Posterior Chain — and Why It’s So Important

There's no shame in wanting to build powerful, defined muscles. But if that's your goal, you may find yourself prioritizing the muscles you see in the mirror — your abs, quads, pecs and biceps, for instance — while skipping over those you can't easily view. Most often, that means neglecting to train the major movers on the back of your body.

Strengthening these muscles, which make up your posterior chain, is essential to keeping your joints safe, maintaining a healthy posture and performing at your best. Ahead, experts break down the importance of a strong posterior chain, plus how to train it with seven exercises.

It may sound like a complicated piece of anatomy, but the posterior chain refers to all of the muscles that run along the back side of your body, from your neck down to your heels, says Leada Malek, DPT, CSCS, a board-certified sports specialist and physical therapist. Specifically, the posterior chain includes the following major muscles, among others:

• Levator scapulae
• Traps
• Posterior deltoids
• Rhomboids
• Lats
• Rotator cuff muscles
• Triceps
• Erector spinae
• Glutes
• Hamstring muscles
• Calf muscles

On the flip side, your anterior chain consists of the muscles that line the front side of your body, including those on the inside of your forearms, your biceps, your pecs, your abdominals, your hip flexors and your quads, Malek tells LIVESTRONG.com.

These muscles all work together to perform various functions throughout your body, which is where the "chain" component of the term comes from.

"Everything is linked and functions together — many of these muscles have multiple actions across the posterior side [of the body]," Malek says. Your hamstrings, for example, not only play a role in bending your knee, but they also extend your hip, she says.

Most people tend to have stronger anterior chain muscles than posterior chain muscles because many daily activities — sitting at a desk, driving a car, walking the dog, climbing up the stairs — call on those muscles, Malek says. But it's important to keep both the front and back sides of your body in balance, she adds. Here's why.

The muscles in your posterior chain are some of the strongest in your entire body, and they help drive power-focused movements, such as the hang clean and back squat, says Analisse Ríos, CPT, CSCS, a certified strength and conditioning coach.

"With a strong posterior chain, you're going to have more power, be able to run faster and be more agile," Ríos tells LIVESTRONG.com.

Your glutes and hamstrings, for instance, help propel you forward while sprinting and lift heavy while deadlifting, Malek adds. So the stronger these muscles are, the better you'll perform in your sport or at the gym.

But a strong posterior chain can also ensure you're moving effectively in your everyday life. You need strong glutes and hamstrings to properly control your hips, while powerful lats, which assist in shoulder extension, can improve the efficiency of pulling motions, according to Malek.

"Our day-to-day life requires these muscles to stay strong," Malek says. "In order to build that capacity to sustain movement, you definitely need to address those [posterior chain] muscles."

Keeping the strength of your anterior and posterior chains in balance plays a key role in injury prevention, according to the experts. If you're a runner with stronger quads than hamstrings, for instance, you may have a greater risk of developing a hamstring injury, according to Malek.

"If you have limited ability to control your knee extension from the posterior chain muscles [due to weakness], the hamstring muscle will be overloaded, so you run the risk of a strain," Malek says.

Because the muscles on the back side of your body are essential to stabilizing lower-body joints, "any time you see a knee or hip injury, it's probably a weak posterior chain issue happening," Ríos says.

To ensure you sit and stand upright and slouch-free, a strong posterior chain is key. When you prioritize chest exercises, like bench presses, but neglect moves that target your lats, rhomboids and other upper-back muscles, your posture can become worse for the wear, according to the experts.

"As the pecs get stronger, they pull everything forward, and their lats aren't strong enough to pull your shoulder blades back, so you slouch over a little bit," Ríos says. "You definitely need a balance of both of those for good posture."

The easiest way to ensure you hit all of your posterior chain muscles is to program two full-body workouts each week, allowing for at least 48 hours of recovery time between workouts, according to the experts. Ríos, who trains collegiate and professional athletes, prefers to do one workout consisting of upper-body "pushing" exercises (such as bench presses and triceps dips) and lower-body "pulling" exercises (such as deadlifts and good mornings).

For the second workout, she focuses on upper-body pulling exercises (think: pull-ups and biceps curls) and lower-body pushing moves (think: glute bridges and quad extensions). Aim to complete three to four sets of three to five reps for each exercise you program.

That said, don't be afraid to sprinkle posterior chain moves into all of your workouts, Ríos says. "The way you can do that is by starting with a power block, because a lot of the posterior chain movements are full-body, power movements," she explains. "At the start of my workouts, I include the hang clean — you need that strong posterior chain to bring that bar up as fast as possible — and med ball slams, as you're using that posterior chain to slam that ball into the ground or wall."

Regardless of how you program your posterior chain exercises, remember to include an exercise or two that targets the muscle group that's relevant to your sport or goals, such as hamstring curls if you're a runner, Malek suggests.

If you're wondering, ‌how do I fix a weak posterior chain,‌ you're ready to start building up your posterior chain strength, correcting your posture and reducing your risk of injury. So, try some of Malek's favorite moves, which she demonstrates below.