When you were younger you were told that “good” posture is one where your chest is up and shoulders are back. This was a common misconception that we were lead to believe was true. In fact, if we push our shoulders back and down to the most ends of its ranges, it will just push our head and neck more forward. Try to do it on yourself and look in a mirror from a side view. Is that good posture? I think not.
So how do we get the ribcage and head + neck to stack in vertical alignment ? The answer is one very important muscle: the serratus anterior. This muscle will flatten and upright the shoulder blade to the ribcage. It can also push the ribcage backwards in space, which will then allow the head and neck to stack a bit more backwards as well. We want this because phones, laptops and tv watching pushes our head and neck forward in space. So we need something to push us backward in space, hence the necessity of the serratus anterior muscle.
The next big question is: how do we activate this amazing, awesome muscle!? The answer my friend, is reaching! As we reach are arms forward in space, we are able to turn the serratus anterior muscle on, making a nice sandwich between the shoulder blade and ribcage, and most importantly, we can shift that ribcage backward in space. That’s why I include a lot of reaching exercises with ALL of my patients. Learning how to properly reach is a key part of making any reaching exercise a success VS a big waste of time. We must make sure to coordinate proper breathing pattern while we are actively reaching. I’m talking about soft inhales into nose and long exhale through mouth. This allows for beautiful expansion of the ribcage during our inhales, while creating stability of the core and trunk with our exhales.
The last part of improving forward head posture is learning how to use the serratus anterior to properly load the shoulder blades. This means getting down on all-four positions and loading the shoulders through your hands, wrist and elbow. We must go backwards in time, as young children, and get comfortable on our hands and knees again. We must incorporate things like bear walking and crawling as part of our daily exercise program. This will solidify the ribcage and shoulder blade position we seek, and with that, solidify a proper head and neck position for our lifetimes.
Nice explanation !