Pain In The Neck

One thing I take pride in, and greatly enjoy, about my job, is my ability to see dysfunction postures and movement pasterns. So this week I wanted to discus an issue that I see far too often these days. This issue is the forward head posture. So while you read this weeks post, make sure you sit up straight!

The Cervical spine, the neck, can bend forwards, backwards, to the side, and rotates. It’s made out of seven vertebrae and dozens of muscles, both large and small. Some of these muscles never rest when you’re upright, otherwise your head would fall to your chest! The neck is really designed to balance the 10- to 14-pound pumpkin that sits on top of it. The problem arises when your head starts to drift forward. This is because for every inch the head juts forward, the neck takes on a load equal to roughly 10 additional pounds. In turn this can lead to neck pain, stiffness, cervical muscle strains, headaches, dizziness, early onset arthritis, decreased lung capacity, and pain or weakness in parts of the body that lie below the cervical spine.Yikes!

By now I assume you’re all sitting up straight in your chair like Hermione Granger in class. But in reality, this posture develops over a long period of time. Most commonly, people who work long hours at a computer, professional drivers, cyclists, runners, baseball players, cell phone addicts, musicians, chefs, surgeons, dentists, and other people who lean over their work are likely to develop a forward head posture.

So by now you should be able to tell that this issue doesn’t just develop over night. So don’t be a Goober and think simply sitting up straight more often will fix it. You spend your whole life getting into the posture that your in, so you will need to take a few more steps to overcome the postural dysfunction. The first step is to see a doctor if you’re experiencing numbness, pain that radiates toward the shoulder or arm, or a loss of strength in the arms or hands. If you don’t have any of these medical concerns then you can try stretching and foam rolling the thoracic spine, sternocleidomastoid, levator scapulae, and upper trapezius to start. Next, you need to be mindful of the muscles that are working during your exercise. If you’re doing a shoulder raise, but feel the muscles in the upper traps firing up, you will need to make adjustments to what you’re doing.