There are so many things I can talk about with Forward Head Posture. Today we are going to talk about a new journal article that came out in July of 2022. It is about the comparison of sensory-motor integration and skill-related physical fitness components between college athletes with and without forward head posture. So forward head posture. What is it? You’re on the phone, your head goes forward and we know that when the head goes forward, it’s going to put pressure on the discs. The muscles in your neck and spine are going to have to work like crazy. The skull’s going to go in extension and change the cerebral spinal fluid. It’s going to affect the jaw, balance, you name it.
But what about just athletic ability? What if you’re asymptomatic, right? You’re an athlete, you’re in college. How is that going to affect you? This is a wonderful study in a top-tier journal of Sport Rehabilitation, and what they did is test four different metrics. So, you have 50 people in the forward head posture group, 50 people in the non-forward head posture group, asymptomatic, no pain athletes, and they looked at four things. First, they did what’s called a T-sprint test. Sprint 10 meters one way, then five meters the other way, then 10 meters back, five meters to the middle, and then 10 meters back again, while timing it, forming a capital letter “T”.
The next metric was the Stork Balance Test- Balancing on an unsteady surface. So you’re basically standing and seeing how long you can do this based on stimuli that are given to you. And then they looked at the vertical leap, just a pure vertical jump. Then there was a dynamic stretching balance test, a three-dimensional stretch/balance test measuring agility. So these are things that athletes really rely on. A volleyball player needs to jump up to the net. A football player needs to grab the ball. A basketball player needs to get that rebound. So what’s happening here and is there a difference?
Looking at the spine as a whole, the two chiropractic techniques I recommend for corrective type care are CBP or chiropractic biophysics, and the other is called the Pettibon System. You can go on their websites and see a chiropractor in your area that’ll do this type of correction. If you don’t have it, you can take some x-rays, you can do a telehealth call with me, and we can work you through the home care.
So, what did they find out? The people who had the forward head posture were actually 10% slower on the sprint test. Then you had the vertical leap, the results are nine centimeters less in the forward head posture group! It’s amazing. Then there was the historic balance test, and in fact, the people who didn’t have the forward head posture could stand out for a couple of seconds longer. The dynamic stretch test also showed improvement. They actually have a way of testing the signals that go up to the brain. You get a sensation, and that’s a sensory-motor signal that goes up into the brain, and the brain sends a signal back to the motor cortex. So imagine you get a sensory signal of an uneven surface on a step. Maybe you’re in a cobblestone, or maybe you’re on a field that’s uneven and your brain gets this signal of this. Your ankle is going in the wrong way, boom. The signal goes up and it goes back, and then you’re allowed to make that change. If you’re not in forward head position, you’re going to adapt and improvise and overcome and not get injured because that head is back over the shoulders. It’s incredible. So if you think you’re a good athlete, you’re a great mountain biker, you’re a great runner, and you want to be a better athlete, you get that head back over your shoulders and you’re way better off. So I want you to think about that!
If you’re reading this, you’re probably under chiropractic care. Or you probably want to get a chiropractor to fix that curve. If you’re at a computer studying or on your phone, get your head back from that forward position. Fix those ergonomics, right? You are the captain of your ship! You are precious. Take care of yourself, and let’s move away from that forward head posture and see your athletic performance and your human performance go way up. We love it. All right, good talking to you guys today. Let’s keep taking care of ourselves with self-care, which is hands-on high-quality healthcare. Check out my full video on Forward Head Posture.
