Postural Weakness

I was sitting here watching the Olympics tonight, thinking of what to write about and realized that my neck is tired from sitting here reading emails and facebook. Your posture while working on the computer can make or break your day. Your neck and upper back muscles have to hold up that 15 pound bowling ball. If you are not keeping these muscles strong with some simple exercises, you may suffer from chronic neck and upper back pain. Those muscles hold your head high and above your shoulder girdle. Any forward positioning of your head puts extra stress on your neck and upper back muscles. Those muscles are then working overtime all day and then they may hurt.
Another problem is the way you may view your computer screen with glasses. There are many types of lenses and the way you read through the lenses may effect your neck postures. Occasionally, I have recommended my neck patients to get a different pair of glasses for just computer work because the progressive lenses they have cause them to shear their head forward on their neck causing pain.
If you have had chronic neck, upper back, shoulder pain and even headaches,it is good to correct your work station to reduce the stresses on these areas. Still, if you have adapted to these postures, you may have shortened muscle tissue that can not self correct your posture. At this point, you may benefit from physical therapy to lengthen these muscles and restore the joint mobility you may have lost in the cervical joints. A good postural strengthening program is a very important part of reducing postural weakness and head and neck pain. If you every have any questions, I can be reached at (208)661-7167 PST.

The trouble with ski poles

Yesterday, I thought I was going to have to treat myself today, not sure how I can reach the side of my hip very easily. Dale, my husband and friends Rick and Anita were busting up when I got my pole stuck under my ski while I was standing still and toppled over onto my hip with my head down hill on a slight grade. OUCH!! Good thing I wear a helmet. So, the moral of the story is do not step on the basket of your ski pole while standing still and try to move downhill. How I can treat my bruised hip is another story for a physical therapist that does lots of manual therapy.