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Intro
Come on, you've tried it. You tried chin tucks to help correct forward head posture, and it hasn't worked. In fact, if you do any single stretch or single exercise to try to fix this posture, it's not going to work. In this video, I'm going to show you how to fix forward head posture in three simple exercises. My name is Dr. John Saunders, and in 18 years of practice, I've never seen more people with forward head posture in my entire career. Now, we know it's very common, but just because it's common doesn't mean it's normal. Lots of people have high blood pressure and high cholesterol. It is still an abnormal clinical finding.
Some people will present with forward head posture and have no complaints at all: no pain, no symptoms. But others present with associated symptoms, everything from neck pain to headaches, to a pinched nerve going down your arm, to balance issues, to dizziness, to fogginess. I even see people struggling to heal from a lumbar disc bulge or herniation because their posture is so forward, compressing the bottom discs. We were never meant to sit for 8 to 10 hours a day, having gravity work on us, pushing us more forward and more forward. This can be devastating to our spinal health.
Forward Head Posture & Symptoms
I want to take a minute to explain the most common cause of forward head posture, and it's not a problem in the neck. Gravity is constantly acting on us. We've assumed poor postural habits. We don't move enough, our muscles weaken, our ligaments lengthen, and we have poor spinal alignment. The first thing that happens is we assume a lazy posture. This allows our thoracic spine to start to shift forward without even addressing the neck. As your thoracic spine hunches forward, your spine shifts forward, jutting your head out. What happens then is your neck needs to compensate, and it goes into hyperextension, really firing your suboccipitals just underneath the base of your skull. You're going to find this gets really tight. And finally, what happens is you would assume a posterior pelvic tilt, a loss of curve in the lower back.
Most Common Postural Pattern
To assume this posture, the primary area we need to correct is right here. If we can fix this spot, this will help correct the other areas in the spine that are compensating for the poor thoracic posture. We call that thoracic hyperkyphosis, or an increased flexion through the midback. What I'm going to show you is how to fix this area to help fix that forward head posture and those associated symptoms. I would like you to visualize a mirror image. What does mirror image mean? It means trying to take this posture and move it in the exact opposite direction. A mirror image in terms of the strengthening of the muscles, the ligament stretch, and the neuromuscular coordination or activation is essential to fixing this faulty postural pattern.
Finally, if you have any symptoms associated with your forward head posture, like a pinched nerve, dizziness, or headaches, this is something you should consult a professional about. They're in a position to provide you with more specific care and testing to make sure the correction happens as efficiently and safely as possible.
Now, remember: a single stretch or a single exercise of a single muscle group will not work to fix forward head posture. The movements I'm going to show you, these three simple exercises, are going to be movements that involve many muscles, joints, and ligaments.
Mirror Image Concept to Correction
What you're going to need for this one is a small towel or a face cloth, just for some padding. We're going to really visualize and think about that mirror image exercise, or that mirror image position, the opposite of this position. So we're going to take our small towel or face cloth and get against the wall. We're going to hold it there. The first thing you want to do is pull your shoulders back. Get your shoulders back. If your head's off the wall, you're going to find that you have to pull it up, and as you pull it back, you might want to extend your head because your suboccipitals are tight. What you want to do is make sure you tuck your chin and pull your chin down and back into the face cloth. Again: chest up, shoulders back, chin tuck. This position might be difficult to get your head where it needs to be, but this is the right position. You need to take a few steps out.
Then, to fire those muscles, we're going to pull our chin towards the wall. We want our head over the top of our shoulders, over the top of our hips. Nice position, chest up. We want to hold this position for two to three minutes. For some of you this might be difficult, so start off slow: 5, 10, 15 seconds, whatever you can do. Hold your shoulders back, pull them down, really take your chin and pull it in, and use this as leverage to fire those muscles. You can really feel it deep in the muscles in the neck and at your suboccipital area. You will also feel it in your trapezius muscles.
The other thing you want to be aware of when you're doing this is that this posture often involves a posterior pelvic tilt. When you're in the position, what you want to do to alleviate this is mirror image it: extend your glutes just a little bit in this position, and again tuck. Try to keep that nice and straight and in the right alignment. That exercise is probably one of the best exercises you can do to help that hunched-forward posture, or that forward head posture.
Exercise #1 (The BEST)
For the next exercise, we're going to do a scapular placing exercise, but we're going to put an emphasis on the middle part of our back. Please stay tuned to the end, because I'm going to give you a couple of tips to help you continue to maintain your proper posture in day-to-day life.
For this exercise, we're going to get on our stomachs, or lie prone. We're going to place our hands behind us. We want to take our chin, tuck it, and hold. Right away you should feel this in your middle traps. We're going to pull our shoulders back and elevate them off the floor or a table, and we're going to pull our shoulders down with a chin tuck. We're going to hold this for 10 seconds, and then we're going to rest. Chin tuck, shoulders back, push down, point to our toes, so to speak, and hold, and relax. For this exercise you can do 10 sets a day, holding for 10 to 15 seconds. Really focus on pulling your shoulders back, tucking your chin, and extending your thoracic spine, to work all the areas of the faulty posture pattern in a mirror image position.
Exercise #2
Now for the final exercise or movement. This is an area where I find a lot of people actually do quite well with the exercises to fix their posture, but they often forget about another tissue: ligaments. Ligaments are what give our spine stability. The problem is, if your spine is out of alignment for a long period of time, the ligaments tighten up around that new position, so they need to be stretched, and they need to be stretched slowly.
Ligament "Creep"
There's a phenomenon called ligament creep, and essentially what that means is that over a period of time the ligaments will slowly creep or stretch. The problem is it takes them at minimum five minutes to get started, and up to 15 to 20 minutes to get them to their full length. We need to stretch the ligaments to allow the exercises to help hold your posture in the correct form.
Exercise/Stretch #3
For this traction or stretch, you can use a pool noodle, a rolled towel, or a foam roller if you have one. What we're going to do a little differently here is focus on our mid-thoracic spine to mirror image that faulty, lazy postural pattern that we all have. Take your towel or your pool noodle and get it between your shoulder blades. That's where we want it. It might take a bit of maneuvering to get it in the right spot, but once you feel your thoracic cage, or your rib cage, open up, you know you're in the right spot.
To make it easy, you might want to keep your legs bent, then extend over the top just like this. Let your shoulders roll out. That feels really good. You can keep your arms out to the side if you want a little more stretch. You need to stay in this position for a minimum of five minutes, but you can do this up to 15 to 20 minutes a day.
For some of you who want to help with a neck curve, you can edge back. You can either put a smaller towel under your neck, or if you're on the edge of a bed, you can edge back and get your head slightly extended off as well. Open up the shoulders again. Think happy, healthy thoughts. It's a nice time to relax, push the stress out of your head, and just relax into the stretch.
If you've completed these two exercises and the thoracic traction with me already, you're going to feel better. You're going to be breathing better, you're probably going to have more energy, you're going to feel more upright, and your day is just going to be better. If you do those two exercises and that last stretch I showed you every day, I know you will notice a difference in your forward head posture and hunched-forward posture within 30 days.
3 IMPORTANT Tips
I'm going to leave you with three final tips to help prevent your posture from relapsing into that old routine, and to prevent future problems from happening.
The first thing you need to do, and this will take some practice, is make sure you're breathing through your belly and not with that tight, chest, stressful breathing. The more you breathe through your belly, the more it naturally allows you to stand up straighter, take more oxygen in, and be less stressed through your day.
The second thing, for those who sit for 8 to 10 hours a day: put a reminder on your phone every 30 minutes. Have an alarm go off to remind you to get up, get a glass of water, and move around. Breaking your faulty postural pattern and your sustained positions, and just getting out from under gravity every 30 minutes or so, will go a long way in helping you maintain the posture you desire.
Finally, when you are moving around your day, when you're exercising, on a treadmill, doing weights, think one simple thing: take your sternum and make sure it's pointing up. Don't let your sternum point down. Don't think of anything except your sternum when you're walking, exercising on a treadmill, or running. Keep that sternum to the sky, and it will help maintain proper posture.
Outro
If you like this video, please give it a thumbs up. If you have a question about anything I showed you, or you need some clarification, put it in the comment section below, and I will answer that question for you. Finally, maybe you'll consider subscribing to my channel if you like the content I'm putting out. Thanks for tuning in, and I can't wait to see you in my next video. Until then, stay well.