Upper Cross Syndrome Stretch #1

The suboccipital muscles are a muscle group that is commonly tight when one holds improper posture with the head and neck. Most of the time when one sits at a computer or looks at a phone for a long period of time, the head and neck protrudes forward and our chin tilts upward a bit. This position contracts the suboccipital muscle group. When this contraction is held for more than 8 seconds, it cuts off some blood supply to the muscles which over time will cause the muscles to harden and possibly calcify in the long term. We can prevent this by keeping our head and neck back or simply being mindful of not protruding it forward when we sit. But if this improper posture is commonly held then we would want to stretch the suboccipitals by retracting the head and tucking the chin into the adams apple area of the neck. Only hold this stretch for about 5 seconds and then while at the peak of the stretch, use the hand to push from front to back on the forehead while pushing the forehead into the hand with about 20% of the muscle capacity for about 5 seconds. This stretch can make one sore so be sure to start off only doing 5 reps and 2 sets daily and slowly increase it to 10 reps and 3 sets daily over the course of several weeks.