Upper Cross Syndrome

Frequently Asked Questions

For patients who sit at a desk all day, how often should they be doing these stretches or exercises during work hours to prevent issues?

People who sit at a desk all day for work should get up and move around 3-4 times per day for at least 3-5 minutes. Try to incorporate some stretching and walking during these small breaks

Do you ever recommend ergonomic changes to workstations alongside chiropractic care, and if so, what are the most impactful adjustments?

Ergonomic changes to workstations can have a big impact on a person’s quality of life if they work at a desk all day. I typically recommend a sit stand desk option so people aren’t sitting all day long.

How long does it typically take for patients to start noticing posture improvements using your three-pronged approach?

Patients typically report improvement in their posture after about 30 days of using our three-pronged approach

Are there specific signs people can watch for that indicate upper cross syndrome is beginning to cause deeper structural issues?

Specific signs of upper cross syndrome include forward head posture, shoulders rolled forward, slouching, difficulty standing up straight, neck pain, upper back pain, and mid back pain. The good news is upper cross syndrome responds very well to chiropractic care combined with stretching, exercises and ergonomic work station changes.

Hello everybody, this is Dr. Aaron Seaton. Today's video is about upper cross syndrome. This is something that I see in my practice quite a bit, where people are kind of rounded forward, neck coming down, shoulders are slumped forward like this. Learn more about neck pain and what to do about it.

A lot of this is due to sedentary lifestyle or just having a desk job where you're forward a lot. And quite frankly, we do a lot in front of us these days with phones, with devices, just working with our hands right here. So we have this tendency to want to roll forward, neck come forward.

And this creates what's called upper cross, where we get tight in the neck coming down and chest pecs coming across, forms a cross. So what I like to do with my patients that have this situation going on is obviously doing some chiropractic adjustments, getting the mid upper back and neck to start moving properly again. But I also give them some home exercises where they can go into a doorway and lean and do that little chest wall stretch.

As you open up like that in the doorway, it'll help stretch those pecs. It's real common for these to get tight if we're forward a lot. So opening that up.

Another one I like to do is kind of anchor right around my collarbone and lift up and stretch the front neck muscles. Nobody ever stretches these. You can also do the side neck muscles, but kind of grabbing around that collarbone, reinforcing and lifting back, lifting away, opening this up.

These can be very effective stretches, especially if you're doing them consistently, like twice a day for a few weeks. You'd be surprised how much more it'll start to relax the shoulders, allow them to come back. Another thing that can affect this is if you're forward a lot and you're not doing anything like rowing or any kind of exercises to get the back muscles to pull those shoulder blades back, that's another option for patients, even just doing with basic bands at home where we get a little bit of a rowing or a pulling exercise like that to help strengthen the back muscles.

So it's kind of a three-pronged approach when you see upper cross, like adjust the patient, get them moving again, get those bones in the neck and mid back clear. So that when we start stretching and then when we start strengthening, we can get that posture to change and hold them upright better. Discover the secret to better posture with chiropractic care. Very effective, but this is something I see a whole lot.

So if you've been dealing with and working at a desk or you feel yourself kind of slouching, rounding forward, this is a good thing for us to start looking at and getting you adjusted to make sure that that doesn't become chronic. Because over time, the more you're like this, the more you're putting undue stress on the bones in your lower neck, upper back and mid back, and it can start leading to early degenerative arthritis in those areas. Understand arthritis and its impact. So hopefully that helps you better understand this condition.

If you have that issue, you need some help. I'm Dr. Aaron Seaton. You can give me a call at The Chiropractic Place.

Call our office today to schedule an appointment to kickstart your healthy life: 530-221-8443

*The transcription is auto-generated by a program and may not be accurate. In order to ensure you get all the information from the video properly, you must watch the video.

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Upper Cross Syndrome | The Chiropractic Place