What the load actually is
Your head weighs about five kilograms and sits on top of seven small, highly mobile segments. Held directly over your shoulders, that weight is carried efficiently through the structures designed for it.
Tip it forward to look at a screen and the muscles at the back of the neck and upper back have to work against a lever. The further forward it goes, the harder they work: continuously, for as long as you hold the position.
None of that is a problem for a few minutes. It becomes a problem at eight hours a day, five days a week, for years. Joints adapt to how they are loaded, and this is a very consistent load.
What people notice
- Aching at the base of the neck and across the top of the shoulders, worse late in the day and late in the week
- A band of tightness between the shoulder blades
- Headaches starting at the base of the skull, often on the more demanding days
- Stiffness turning the head, particularly first thing
- Occasionally pins and needles into an arm or hand
- Jaw tightness, which travels with this more often than people expect
Why stretching alone has not fixed it
Most people arrive having already tried stretching the muscles that feel tight. It helps for an hour or two.
The reason it does not last is that those muscles are not tight for their own sake: they are tight because they are doing a job that something else has stopped doing. Typically the deep neck stabilisers have shut down and the mid back has stopped rotating, so the superficial muscles hold the head up all day instead. Stretch them and they will simply resume, because the work still needs doing.
What changes it is restoring movement where it has been lost and rebuilding the capacity of the structures that should be sharing the load.
How we assess it
A first visit takes about 30 minutes. We look at segmental movement through the neck and mid back, the position you actually hold rather than the one you adopt when someone is watching, the behaviour of the deep stabilisers, and the shoulder girdle. We also ask in some detail about your desk setup, because that is where the load is coming from.
What care might involve
- Adjustment of the cervical and thoracic segments that have stopped moving well
- Soft tissue work to the overloaded postural muscles
- Rehabilitation for the deep neck flexors and the mid-back and shoulder girdle: the part that actually changes the pattern
- Specific, practical advice on your workstation. Screen height first: it is the highest-yield change most people can make
The realistic version
Symptoms usually settle within a few weeks. Changing a pattern you hold for eight hours a day takes longer, and you have to do the exercises. We will give you as few as will do the job, because long programs get abandoned.