Many experience neck, shoulder, or back soreness with daily activities, like bending to grab items off the floor. Often, this occurs without the person ever quite knowing the cause. Usually, it has to do with poor posture.
Ultimately, the problem is muscular imbalance.
A muscular imbalance occurs when one muscle or group of muscles is over developed compared to those that either oppose or support them. It’s like a car with a powerful engine, but poor handling.
It just doesn’t work.
A common type of muscle imbalance in inexperienced weight lifters, especially young men, occurs when the upper body is over developed compared to the lower body. This can lead to back pain and knee and hip instability.
But one of the most common types of muscle imbalance is also among the most important from a rehab perspective. It’s when the chest and trapezii muscles are over developed compared to the scapular region and the upper back.
This often leads to the shoulders be rolled forward and in, a postural deviation called “kyphosis.” In addition to making you appear hunched and perhaps lacking in confidence, this imbalance can also cause increased neck and back pain.
The reason for it’s ubiquity is clear when you consider how much we do every day in a shoulders-forward posture.
Whenever you drive, eat, type, text, use a smartphone or tablet, watch TV, or even brush your teeth, chances are you are pulling on or both shoulders inward. This activates the chest and trapezii muscles, but only stretches the upper back without providing any strengthening.
The solution is threefold.
1) Stretch your body in the opposite direction to loosen your tight chest muscles. The best ways is by performing door frame stretches.
2) Strengthen your back muscles, which are the pulling as opposed to pushing muscles, in the gym. A great exercise for this is performing Y-raises on a mat.
3) Remain conscious of combating your kyphotic posture at all times by keeping your shoulders back and your head held high. Find more proper posture tips here.
If you’d like help from a trained rehab specialist to correct your muscular imbalances, consider calling Karp Rehab today!
Shaun Karp is a certified personal trainer in Vancouver, B.C. For more info call 604-420-7800 or visit Karp Rehabilitation on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+.