Forward head posture is no joke.
Besides being unsightly; forward head posture can lead to literally having a pain in your neck, mid, lower, and upper back as well as headaches.
It is generally caused from sitting on ipads, laptops, or just reading a book for extended periods of time – hour after hour, day after day, week after week, year after year.
The other day I linked you to an article describing a simple method for taking care of forward head posture and the symptoms that accompany it.
For a recap of the entire article you can go here ==> http://www.collective-evolution.com/2014/07/07/6-bad-postures-that-are-ruining-your-health-and-how-to-correct-them/
Here is the author’s recommendation for fixing forward head posture:
The problem: Stiff muscles in the back of your neck.
The fix: Moving only your head, drop your chin down and in toward your sternum while stretching the back of your neck. Hold for a count of five; do this 10 times a day. Be careful not to push too hard or you will risk shifting your vertebra, which can lead to constant headaches.
The author providing the solution is correct in that stiffness of muscles along the back of the neck leads to forward head posture. However, even they acknowledge that doing the exercise they suggest can easily be messed up and “risk shifting your vertebra, which can lead to constant headaches”.
Basically – when most people with forward head posture attempt to perform the suggested stretch they end up going into even further forward head posture!
There is a very simple solution to this.
Simply use a wall!
I have discussed the importance of maintaining a neutral neck and spine throughout all exercises before. You can read more about this here ==> http://stowetrainingsystems.com/?p=519
By placing the back of our head against a wall or the floor and then performing a chin tuck we can effectively facilitate a stretch through the back of the neck while completely eliminating the risk of losing neutral spine and shifting your vertebrae.
Make sure that your butt, upper back, and back of head are in contact with either the floor (easier version) or a wall (more difficult version). Then make a double chin without allowing the back of your head to leave either the floor or wall respectively.
That’s it!
Simple but effective.
Here is a video for those visual learners out there:
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[video_player type=”youtube” width=”560″ height=”315″ align=”center” margin_top=”0″ margin_bottom=”20″]aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cueW91dHViZS5jb20vd2F0Y2g/dj1JNENWeTE3a3Q4TQ==[/video_player]
In addition to this tweak to the exercise itself I would also suggest that instead of performing 10 reps per day that you instead perform 10 sets of 10 reps per day for 100 total reps.
It takes approximately 40-60 hours to develop a new motor pattern. The more reps you can perform the quicker the result you will have.
The devil is often in the details.
A simple wall or floor will eliminate all of the risk associated with the exercise recommended in the author’s article while maintaining 100% of the exercises effectiveness.
I hope these tips have helped.
Now get your chin tucks on!
I will be back soon with more effective methods for correcting pigeon toes and duck feet.
Talk soon,
-Nate
