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Cervical Posture Syndrome – A Real Pain in the Neck

Published: June 10, 2020

Author: Nathan Rickard

If you get pain in your neck and shoulders from sitting, it’s probably Cervical Posture Syndrome (CPS). This article will help you understand what CPS is, and help you manage your condition. For self-help exercises for treating CPS, you can go to our Instagram page via the link at the end of this article - “How to Fix Cervical Posture Syndrome Exercises”. Make sure you follow us for more great health and fitness tips and advice!

Cervical Postural Syndrome is characterised by poor posture of the shoulders, middle back and neck, which causes back pain and tight muscles. Typically, there is a larger than normal curve forwards in the upper back, meaning the shoulders sit forwards, and the chin protrudes.

Essential Anatomy

To understand CPS, it is important to understand some basic human anatomy.

We have many muscles that support our upper back, neck, and shoulders. The primary postural muscles of the neck are the deep neck flexors, and the main postural muscles of the shoulder blades and upper back are the Trapezius (lower fibers) and Serratus Anterior. In CPS we often see decreased activation and weakness in these muscles. Other muscles that are involved include large muscles that move the neck and chest – known as prime movers. These are the Trapezius (upper fibers) and Levator Scapula in the neck, and the Pectoral muscle group in the chest. In CPS, it is typical for these muscles to become tight.

What causes Cervical Posture Syndrome?

The main cause of CPS is sitting all day. In modern life, we sit down to have breakfast, then we sit in a car, tram or train to go to work, then we sit all day at work, repeat the same when traveling home, and finally sit down to eat and watch TV or our other devices before going to bed. That’s an awful lot of sitting compared with our ancestors.

We simply aren’t designed to sit all day, and the longer we sit, the more we slouch. When we slouch, the larger muscles that are designed to move us get tight from being stretched all day. Meanwhile, our postural muscles switch off due to decreased demand. This causes the characteristic slouched “Poke-Chin” posture in the anatomy picture above.

Being in a “Poke-Chin” posture for prolonged periods places increased pressure on the muscles of the neck, shoulders and upper back. This pressure builds and soon the body begins to perceive this as unhealthy mechanical stress and hence you feel neck and shoulder pain.

The poorer the sitting posture, the greater the pressure and the more significant the pain. Hence a poor desk set-up, low couches, and poor driving positions are common settings that contribute to PS.

Another primary cause of CPS is a lack of movement and exercise. The less active a person, the more the prime-mover muscles tighten and the weaker the postural muscles get. This is because they don’t get “re-set” with movement and muscles will tend to become weaker without adequate work. However, whilst someone who goes to the gym two times a week will have far less chance of developing CPS than someone who doesn’t, if they still sit all day when not at the gym without breaks and in poor positions, it may still develop.

Physiotherapy treatment

In all cases of Cervical Posture Syndrome, causative factors need to be identified and addressed. These include:

  • Environmental factors (e.g. Poor desk set-up)
  • Behavioral factors (e.g. sitting all day at work without breaks), and
  • Lack of general exercise and movement.

To address these issues, have your desk set up correctly (we can come out and do this for you), put a coffee cup out of reach to get you moving, or walk around when you talk on the phone using an earpiece. And exercise! This will reset everything and relieve stress that is a common cause of neck pain too!

In addition to these factors, problems with flexibility, control, and strength of the neck and shoulders are major causes of CPS.

Flexibility:

Common flexibility issues include:

  • A stiff and rounded thoracic spine
  • Tight upper Trapezius and Levator Scapulae muscles of the neck
  • Tight Pectoral muscles that act on the shoulders

To address these, we use soft tissue massage and teach our clients to stretch and perform self-treatment with tools such as Bakballs.

Control:

Control refers to the ability of an individual to monitor and adjust their body position and posture through a variety of different settings. When it comes to CPS, control of the thoracic spine, cervical spine and shoulder blades are especially important. Your Physiotherapist will assess your control to of these structures to determine if control is a contributing factor to your problem.

Strength:

Strength is a big-ticket item when it comes to the successful rehabilitation of Cervical Posture Syndrome. Strong and resilient tissues promote optimal function and are less likely to become tight or weak, and are less likely to send the brain pain signals when under pressure from sitting. Because let’s face it – it’s impossible to not sit!

Summary

If you are suffering from Cervical Posture Syndrome remember;

  1. Neck pain from CPS is common and very easy to fix
  2. Smart changes to work stations and sitting behaviors are very effective at reducing neck and shoulder pain
  3. Flexibility, control, and strength deficits need to be identified and addressed
  4. General Exercise is an easy way to prevent CPS! And improve everything else….

If you experience neck pain from sitting, book in with your Physio for a thorough assessment using this link – BOOK HERE. Once your individual causes have been identified the road to recovery can begin.  

To go see the self-help videos mentioned in this article, visit our Instagram page.