Hi, this is Dr. Nevel with Sport & Spinal Rehab in Jupiter, FL and today we are demonstrating cervical retraction exercises. They are very common in upper cross syndrome, which is a video that we’ve talked about before, it is a muscular imbalance. With upper cross syndrome, you have forward head posture. So, we need to work on posterior translating your head. This is something as simple that you can do while you’re driving. Most important, while you’re driving, you need to make sure that your head is against the headrest. Most people drive and their head is a few inches in front of the headrest. It’s very important, especially in a rear-end collision, to make sure that your head is touching the headrest. Now to do that, you have to make sure to tuck your chin and posterior translate your head back, hold it against the headrest, pushing back for about 8 seconds, and then relax. We also have something from the Pettibon Institute called a cervical head weight. Cervical head weights are a head weight pouch that you can put various weights in the front. Today, we have 2 pounds of head weight in this cervical head piece. You put the head weight on and naturally, the weight in the front pulls your head forward. Well, your response naturally is to posterior translate your head back so your ears are over your shoulders. You wear Pettibon head weights for about 20 minutes and that will really help strengthen your deep neck flexors and posterior head translators. To learn more, you can visit TheJupiterChiropractor.com.
