Because most of us, you know, we end up sitting a lot
or maybe the newer generations are always on their phones
you're ending having this common movement pattern, or postural pattern.
The biggest thing is what we call the cross syndrome and this is really simple to remember
so if we're looking at just the upper body right,
your head is normally a little bit more forward
rarely are you kind of like this unless you're, you know,
being a pompous .. and you're trying to, you know, impress people, but
most of us kind of more relaxed here. What happens here what's
what's going on with my neck it's a little bit stretched out in the front right?
But if it's stretched out in the front what does it mean the back
it's a little bit shortened up here. So where's a common area that feels good
to massage and stretch out? Right in the back of the neck
right? So you can feel if you put your thumb right at the base of your skull
right usually it feels pretty good now. If it's really tight
you have a nerve that goes with those muscles and you're going to feel
something zinging down you know half your head. But if you
lie down and you just kind of massage and pull up right there it feels pretty good.
And that's because those muscles are always working
to keep you here, right. We need to stretch those out.
And so if we look at talking about the cross syndrome at the top
this part is shortened, this part is lengthened, right?
This part also pulling forward now shoulders, kind of hunched forward and so those
muscles why does it feel good to massage here because they're always working.
And so this simple treatment just do everything that's opposite
pull your shoulder blades back, elongate your head,
tuck in that chin right, and so when we call it a cross syndrome
it's it's easier we can just, from a physical therapy standpoint,
we already know all right, strengthen here, massage here,
strengthen the low back which pulls the shoulder blades back
and the pecs, stretch right basically do the opposite of what we're
always doing out here right and that's going to help with this.
Okay one thing I kind of glossed over when we look at the lines, when you raise
your arm, we talked about earlier about how the tissues have to fold in the back
so this time put one hand on your rib cage and on the
other arm, raise your arm all the way up. Do you feel your ribs moving?
Right it's nice if you're doing it on purpose but what happens a lot of times
that we get so tight in our pecs that when I raise my arm my ribs have
to move up, and if I'm doing a lot of reaching up
I have to clean something up top, you know, my wife's making me wash the windows
and then next thing I know I have back pain and that's because I'm reaching up
all the time. And I'm moving, I don't have shoulder mobility, where am I going to move from?
All right I'm going to move from the back and I'm just going to do all this
to reach up, and my back's going to be hurting, so what's the treatment?
All right, well at first rest, don't move the back,
stretch the pecs, stretch your shoulder, so you can move your shoulder
without having to move your ribs, right?
And that's gonna, again, you're moving along the line so while the pain might be from coming from the back in this case
the problem might be from a lack of shoulder mobility.
Okay the lower cross is kind of the, another example in this case it's
someone with, if you're, we call it anterior pelvic tilt.
Basically you're kind of, your low back is kind of too arched
so if you're sitting a lot your hip flexors get really tight.
That's this muscle right here, right, so if you're walking around it's someone
with this kind of a stooped posture and leaning forward a little bit.
So just like this, and if I need to stand up
I kind of have to move them back again, right? So again the treatment isn't just
ice massage the back, it's get flexibility in the hip flexors that are too tight.
That's the only way you're going to fix this long term.