Dr. Scott's Body Blog: Fixing Upper Crossed Syndrome

I’m back! After a long refreshing weekend with family (and stuffing my face with their baked goods) I’ve returned with the blog post as promised on upper crossed syndrome. Upper crossed syndrome is EVERYWHERE and practically the entire developed world has at least a smidge of it. Characterized by certain muscles getting overworked and leading to forward head posture, it has undoubtedly cost companies unfathomable amount of lost hours of productivity and employees countless hours of, quite literally, headaches. The next few paragraphs will help you improve your posture and fight the good fight against this nasty condition.

Posture Awareness!

The first thing you can do is stop using such poor posture whenever you notice yourself falling into the habit. While sitting at a desk, your knees and hips should be just shy of 90 degrees, your shoulder blades pulled back and your arms should be able to fall to your sides and be able to type (you may feel like a T-Rex or some predatory bird, but it actually how you are supposed to sit!). The following diagram should give you a general idea of how it should look:

As you can see, this diagram looks very natural and a logical way to sit at your desk. Putting yourself in this position, especially if you have a particular bad case of poor posture, can be difficult to hold for significant periods of time. You may even consider this posture mildly painful. This is O.K. and EXPECTED. The only way your body will begin to adapt to this is practice, practice, practice!

A short breaks every 20 minutes or so where you stand up, walk around a bit and get back to work is an excellent way to maintain a good posture and keep your focus up as well. When you sit back down, squeeze your shoulder blades together to stretch out those chest muscles, take a deep breath and get back to work! Try not to use this blog as a reason to stand around and check your fantasy scores or pinterest, that’s on you!

Self-care goal number one: work on those tight muscles!

The muscles that are tight and need the most attention are back of your chest, upper back, and neck/shoulders. Doing these exercises at home first is the best (and cheapest) option for upper cross syndrome. To start, you’ll need to take a trip to sports goods store and purchase two things: a foam roller and at least one lacrosse ball. You need a foam roller(foam cylinder about 6” in diameter) at least as wide as you are and for a dude my size that will cost you roughly $20 minimum. They have fantastic foam rollers that are more expensive and more effective than this, but this is a good start if you’re strapped for dough. Lacrosse balls may come in a pack of three or so, but on the internet you can get one ball for $6.50 or so.

Chest- Using the lacrosse ball, you can trap the ball between your chest and the wall and roll it around your pecs until you find a tender spot. Focus on that spot, vigorously applying pressure and doing small circles on that spot. Eventually the tenderness will subside and you will have just done some real work in fixing your poor posture.
Pro tip: if you can manage to stretch your pec while you do this by bringing your arm back like you’re winding up to smash a forehand shot in tennis, the better it will be.

Back - Using the foam roller, lay on the floor with the roller between your shoulders and the floor. Gradually move the foam roller up and down your back by walking your feet forward and backwards, with the only contact the rest of your body having being your back and the roller. As with the chest, if you find a tender spot, focus on it and even lean to the side the tender spot is on to really get in there.
Pro tip: If you really find a nasty little spot, use the lacrosse ball and trap it between your back and the wall. Give yourself a big tight hug and apply pressure. The hug will hopefully console you as this is done; this can be pretty intense!

Neck/shoulders- This can be pretty difficult considering the muscles are fairly tiny and the curve of your makes getting the necessary pressure tricky. Instead of pounding on your neck with the roller or lacrosse ball, you are going to get a good intense stretch going. For starters, you can start by standing up and bringing your shoulder blades together. From this position, your arms are going to be extended down at a 45 degree angle away from your body in-line with your shoulders. Do NOT bring your arms forward from the plane of your body. You will start by looking left and have your left thumb point forward and the right thumb point directly behind you. After a second at this position, turn your head slowly to the right. At the same time and speed, your thumbs should switch position so that when you are looking right your right thumb is pointing forward and the left is backwards. Ten reps of this is a good start.
Pro-tip: For a more intense stretch, find one fairly heavy weight (I use a 25lb kettlebell). Starting by holding the weight at your side and focus on drawing that side’s shoulder blade down and back as much as you can. Your chest, biceps and shoulder muscles should have ZERO tension in them. While holding this weight, laterally bend your head to the opposite side and tuck your chin down. For added effect, use your other hand to pull your head in this direction. Hold for a slow 20 count each side.

Self-care goal number 2: strengthen the weak muscles!

The weak muscles in this equation are your lower trapezius/rhomboids and deep neck flexors. Here’s how we swoll those up so they can do their job:

Lower traps/rhomboids- rowing and pull downs! Focusing on proper technique and doing them very slowly at a moderate weight (you can comfortably do 8 of them but it gets difficult completing a set of 15) will help TONS. Making sure you are squeezing/contracting the correct muscles is key or you will just make the issue worse. When doing a rowing exercise, make sure your shoulders are relaxed and when you pull your arms back, they slide against the sides of your torso and you are sqeezing your shoulder blades together. Imagine there is a beer can between your lower shoulder blades and you want to try and crush the can. If a pal is near, have them put a finger on the spot while you do the exercise to give yourself a better reference as to where you are trying to squeeze. An exercise such as a lat pull down will also build up these muscles, just be sure you are pulling the bar to your chest and that your torso stays 5-10 degrees leaned back from vertical. If the weight causes you to flex your abs and your spine forward, go down in weight. You’ll be using the same muscles here, so focus on crushing that can!
Pro-tip: Overhand-grip pull ups. Good technique is key, and unless you’ve built up a bit of muscle here it’s quite difficult to perform these. Hooking a foot in a resistance band or two while practicing these is the best bet to get to doing great pull ups.

Deep neck flexors- a tricky place to exercise, the most basic exercise you can do is practice proper head tilt mechanics. To do this, lay flat on your back on the floor. Your goal is to look at your feet, and to do this, lead with your EYES. Eyes look down as much as they can, then as you can’t see further, tuck your chin (keep the back of your head on the floor). This chin tuck fires the muscles that aren’t doing their job in your posture, so focus on this and hold for a second or two. Two sets of 15.
Pro-tip: If you want to make this more difficult, you will need a ball (6-8lb medicine ball is best, not the big soft ones) and a wall. Trap the ball between your forehead and the wall. Perform chin tucks while keeping the ball from falling to the floor. Straight up and down, up to the left/down to the right and vice versa is a good way to work on all the necessary muscles. 2 sets of 15 each direction to start.

Chiropractic care/body work

Let’s face it, these exercises are fantastic at improving your posture, but for a particularly stubborn body, consult with a chiropractor with some manual therapy skills for faster and better results. They will help by putting your spinal column and the rest of your body in their proper place, enabling better nervous system function and accelerating the speed those muscles will be ready to function as they are supposed to. Thanks for reading! I’ll be back next week with more!