Patriot Health Digest
Back and neck pain affects millions of people. If you are serious about solving it, it’s important to deal with the underlying reasons for it.
Most people have jobs where they are sitting for eight hours each day. To make this problem worse, most also spend three hours using their phone.
When you are in a slumped seated posture, you are placing uneven strain upon your discs, putting more pressure on your front more than your back. You’re letting certain muscles like your upper pecs, traps, lower spine erectors, and hip flexors to get shortened and “tight” while letting other muscles like your upper-back, neck flexors, abs, and glutes get weak and lengthened.
This will cause issues such as lower cross (shown by you having anterior pelvic tilt) or upper cross syndrome (forward head position and rounded shoulders).
The Solution: Step 1
It’s hard to counterbalance 85 hours of slouching with just a few hours a week. So step one is fixing your bad posture, then get up and move as often as you can through the day.
Sitting up straight and walk around every 30 minutes or so for a fast walk through the hallway will do wonders toward solving your pain.
The Solution: Step 2
If you are working inside an office, a few exercises and stretches might help solve your posture and lower your pain. Work on stretching your lats, upper traps, hip flexors and pecs, while strengthening your upper back, deep flexors of your neck, abs, and glutes. All this requires is a foam roller and band.
Stretching Exercises
Neck and Upper Traps – Head Tilts
Pecs – Foam Roller Pec Stretch
Pecs and Lats – Lying Overhead Reach
Hip Flexors – Kneeling Hip Flexor Stretch
Strengthening Exercises
Anterior Neck Muscles – Isometric Head Hold
Upper Back – Band Pull-Aparts
Core – Dead Bug
Glutes – Single-Leg Glute Bridge
Combining It All
Doing this quick routine two times each day while you are on your breaks will do wonders. Doing it frequently throughout your day is actually not very time-consuming, and it will go a long way towards fixing your neck or back pain.
Author: Scott Dowdy
