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Is Your Posture Leading to Upper-Crossed Syndrome?
Posted by Tom | Posted in Cervical Spine, Shoulder, Uncategorized | Posted on 08-07-2009
As a physical therapist, a great deal of my time is spent educating people on the importance of proper body alignment, symmetry and posture. I would be willing to bet that most of us have been told since an early age that correct posture is important, but how many people can actually explain why this is true.
As I have mentioned in previous posts, most humans fall into a few typical movement or postural patterns and it is these patterns that are responsible for the majority of musculoskeletal complaints. Now take a minute and think about what I am saying…imagine that on average you are awake 16 hours per day and that a large percentage of those hours are spent in a gravity dependent position such as standing or sitting, whether at school or at work. Both school and work, in most cases, involve prolonged periods in which we are not moving a whole lot and even sitting for extended amounts of time. I realize this does not count for everyone, but trust me this scenario is true for most. While you are sitting or standing in place, your postural muscles are active in an effort to fight the effects of gravity and keep you upright. This is where the problem occurs. Most of us give in to the effects of gravity and begin to slouch either out of habit, muscle weakness or fatigue.
When the average human slouches, he or she will usually flex forward from the vertical axis and round or protract the shoulders. When this happens the head will naturally drop, which would leave us staring at the ground, so we automatically lift our chin, so that our eyes stay even with whatever is going on in front of us (see picture below). It is this position, that over time, can lead to upper-crossed syndrome.
Upper-crossed syndrome describes the most common postural impairment seen in the upper body, hence the word upper it the title and can be easily seen by drawing an X through a person’s thorax.
The end of each diagonal line on the X intersects with a particular set of muscles and describes how they react to chronic postural problems. As mentioned earlier, when we slouch we tend to elevate and round or protract our shoulder blades. This position leads to tightness or overactivity in the muscles that cause these motions including the pectorals and the scapular elevators (upper trapezius and levator scapulae), which can be identified on one diagonal. The other diagonal shows the groups that tend to be weak and include the scapular retractors, scapular depressors and short neck flexors. The scapular retractors and depressors create the opposite motions of the pectorals and scapular elevators and the short neck flexors are responsible for tucking the chin and maintaining normal cervical (neck) alignment.
Upper-crossed syndrome is known to lead to many problems in the human body including impingement syndrome and rotator cuff tears, increased cervical and thoracic intervertebral disc degeneration, cervicogenic headaches, cervical nerve compromise leading to carpal tunnel syndrome, and thoracic outlet syndrome just to name a few.
A simple remedy to prevent upper-crossed syndrome from taking hold is to stretch the muscles that are overactive and strengthen the muscles that are weak. By following these exercises daily you will find that maintaining proper posture will become easier to accomplish and you will lessen your risk of developing any of the other conditions listed above.
Exercise #1 – Doorway (pectoral) stretch – hold 30 seconds, perform twice
Exercise #2 – Upper trapezius/levator stretch – same holds as doorway
Exercise #3 – Scapular setting (squeeze shoulder blades down and together) – perform 10 times and hold for 10 seconds
Exercise #4 – Middle trapezius, rhomboid, rear deltoid fly – perform 2 set of 10 repetitions (weight is not necessary)
Exercise #5 – Short neck flexor chin tuck – tuck chin and hold for 10 seconds, repeat 10 times (try to tuck the chin without activating the large muscles at the front of the neck. You can use your hand to palpate the larger muscles to make sure they are not contracting).
[...] As a physical therapist, a great deal of my time is spent educating people on the importance of proper body alignment, symmetry and posture. I would be willing to bet that most of us have been told since an early age that correct posture is important, but how many people can actually explain why this is true. As I have mentioned in previous posts, most humans fall into a few typical movement or postural patterns and it is these patterns that are responsible for the majority of musculoskeletal Here is the original post: Is Your Posture Leading to Upper-Crossed Syndrome? [...]
Excellent article. I would like add to my collection and post a link on our site, http://www.posturejac.com. I particularly like the picture of the young piano player on the bench.
Please take a look at the PostureJac as a postural awareness and exercise device. Habits get so deeply embedded and body structures profoundly adapt to the dominant position. Wouldn’t it be nice to transform awareness early so change is not so difficult?
As a therapist, it would be nice to follow people around and pattern them in daily activities, or see them frequently enough to mobilize and correct habits. Because this isn’t realistic, a device like the PostureJac can provided guided mobilization for stretching and strengthening until it is committed to and overrides poor posture habits in sensorimotor memory.
Take a look at how the MyoPressers address the byproduct of poor posture, myofascial pain.
Hello,
Please feel free to add a link to my article on your site! The Posture Jac is a very interesting and creative invention and I can see how it could really help the majority of the human population. How often does someone wear the device? Do they at some point stop using it as normal tissue length and strength occurs?
Thanks again for the comment!
Tom Walters PT, DPT
The frequency of use depends on the need. Even 5 minutes a day changes postural awareness. We are finding that seniors wear it for comfort and stability. The handles allow the arms to be used as struts for extra support. We really don’t encourage it to be used as a brace, but something that is comfortable enough to wear for a handy stretch; at the workstation, piano, dental office, kitchen sink, travel, or lifting and bending activities.
The PostureJac was not intended for dependancy. Its best use is to transfer a natural feeling mechanism for restoration and repositioning. Once established, the body wants to frequently autocorrect its alignment.
The reality of our activity (I am spending a lot of time in front of a computer) makes the PostureJac valuable for compensating. It increases the stretch capacity. Like fitness, once you reach your desired levels, you want to retain it. The higher the level, the higher the maintenance.
I find that it is valuable to “stretch out” and get some focused activity going.
I would encourage you to check out our blog. The creator of the PostureJac has a new edition of his textbook Spinal Manual Therapy, An Introduction to Soft Tissue Mobilization, Spinal Manipulation, Therapeutic and Home Exercises. It is due for publication in November. He has a whole chapter on posture and the use of the PostureJac as a therapeutic tool.
We post excerpts of the chapter on our blog at http://www.posturejac.com/postureblog. They have in-depth explanations for therapists.
Thank you! I have upper crossed syndrome and the stretches you show on your website really do work.
Thank you!
Hello,
I am glad to hear the exercises are helping you! Let me know if there are any other topics you have questions about.
Thanks,
Tom