Posture & Upper Crossed Syndrome

We have been talking a lot about posture lately because posture is important! However, don’t let the title of this syndrome scare you. We’re going to break it down!

Let’s say you spend a lot of your days sitting at your job or in your car because you commute to West LA (I feel for you out there who do this!) and you notice that you have a lot of tension in your neck/shoulders or are maybe experiencing some back pain. Why?

This won’t be the case for everyone but posture can have a role in your pain. Do you find that throughout your day your shoulders are shrugged up toward your ear and you didn’t even notice? Are you slumping in your chair and always reaching for a keyboard/mouse?

That’s Janda’s Upper Crossed Syndrome in the making!

Basically, what happens is the muscles that keep us slumped and reaching for our keyboards become “tight” and overactive. This causes the muscles that attach to our shoulder blades to become elongated and weak. This muscle imbalance can lead to increased tension/pain in the neck, shoulders and upper back. However, don’t fret! There are definitely ways to improve your posture through stretching the “tight” muscles and strengthening the weak ones.

If this sounds like something you have experienced, don’t hesitate to reach out and ask us some questions to see if chiropractic or physical therapy could help you!