Can you correct years of bad posture?
If you have chronically tight shoulders and strain along the back of your neck, you likely have head forward posture, or upper crossed syndrome. So what is head forward posture or upper cross syndrome? Head forward posture is when the hole of the ear is forward of the point of the shoulder. What that does is creates muscles in the front that are really, really tight and pulling everything forward. This causes the muscles along the back of your spine and shoulders to become overly stretched.
What’s happening underneath the surface is that instead of your neck, which is the cervical part of the spine, having a supportive curve that offers flexibility, balance and relaxation for the muscles has instead likely lost that curve. The cervical spine becomes very straightened, which sometimes people refer to as military neck. This puts immense strain through the muscles in the back of the neck and they have to hold on like guide wires to hold your head in position. It even creates strain in the nerves and the spinal cord itself, and can create advanced spinal degeneration to where the vertebra are no longer in proper positioning and are wearing and tearing improperly.
How do I stop forward head posture?
There are exercises that you can do to help with this and there are several links below to some of those exercises from our exercise video library. If you find that you are doing the exercises and your head forward posture is not getting better, then you likely have a chiropractic problem.
How does chiropractic help with this? In our office, our first adjustment is always what’s called an upper cervical chiropractic adjustment which is the very top vertebra at the top of the spine. This area is neurologically very dense and can create issues in your posture.
Our very own Dr. Jennifer Taylor did some research on patients in our office a few years ago. She had a sample size of 50 participants that we took record of how far forward their head was, and how much it was making it feel like their head weighed before they had any care at all. She looked at those same patients after they had the first upper cervical chiropractic adjustment.
What she found was that, on average amongst the 50 participants, their head lost 5.6 pounds. That means that their head came back enough that it took five and a half pounds of strain off the back of the neck. If you find that you’re doing exercises to help with the upper crossed, head forward positioning, and it’s not helping please consult an upper cervical chiropractor near you. If you’re in Plano, Texas, we’d love to take care of you here at HealthWorks: A Family Wellness Center and see if this is an issue for you.
To watch the video, click here.
Exercise Videos:
Doorway Stretch Full Spine Range of Motion Part 1 Got Text Neck?