Are you suffering from regular headaches?
To save you “the headache”, our team have 3 exercises to help ease the pain!
Did you know that poor posture can be responsible for persistent headaches?
When the movement in your cervical spine is restricted due to pain, your risk of a headache multiplies, according to Sjastaad et al in a study published in 1998.
However, how do you know your headaches are caused by your neck?
Common symptoms with neck-related headaches that you may experience are: one-sided, non-throbbing, reproduced by neck movements, and prolonged positioning.
Here Insync Physiotherapy will investigate how poor posture and poor cervical spine movement can affect your daily life, and of course we detail how to get to the bottom of it. Simply put, GOOD POSTURE. In our practice we see the first-hand negative effects on one’s life and the contrast in their life once the commitment to change is made.
If that niggle in your neck is left untreated and not thoroughly examined by a practitioner, it can lead to chronic headaches and you are left experiencing symptoms regularly causing a lot of frustration. First, we would like to show you how we examine your neck in a way that reflects your movement patterns. Secondly, we will provide you with some useful exercises to get you started.
At Insync we live and breath the basics. Everything we do in our daily lives may be a direct result of the aches and pains we all feel, hence the importance of the basics. We are big believers of this as well as a tall and confident posture. Our 3 exercises are commonly visited by our clinicians in our Pilates & Exercise classes so be sure to read to the end and click on the link for the videos.
Stop waiting for that niggle to just go away. You’re reading this because it hasn’t. Poor posture leading to headaches and tightness (the list can go on…) is what is making you feel low on energy, a short attention span at work, frustrated and quick to fatigue. It is a very common occurrence in the clinic to hear “ ah yeh, I know I have poor posture”. A very common response is “stop being lazy and be willing to learn more”.
In the following video we provide you with a sneak peak as to how we examine your neck for restriction and its influence to the headache. Then we provide you some of our go to exercises to strengthen the postural muscles in the back. The aim would be to improve in strength and endurance for those muscles so that they can perform well wherein you have to sit for prolonged periods (not that we recommend sitting for a long time).
Finally, here are our 3 l exercises:
1) Chin tucks and superman.
2) Seated rows and low rows.
3) Bent over rows and deadlifts.
Assessments Video
Intermediate Exercises Video
Beginners Exercises Video
Advanced Exercises Video
Make sure you watch the video as it will detail exactly how to perform these exercises to isolate the crucial postural muscles. The videos also show progressions for each of these 3 important exercises. If you’d like to find out more about what other exercises you can explore, visit our Pilates & Exercise class. There we explore the areas you need to focus and improve upon to help relieve those headaches.
If you have any doubts or questions about your headaches and posture, please call our practice on (02) 7226 3432 or book an appointment online.
Thanks for reading,
Insync Physiotherapy Team
References:
Sjaastad, O., Fredriksen, T., & Pfaffenrath, V. (1998). Cervicogenic Headache: Diagnostic
Criteria. Headache: The Journal of Head and Face Pain, 38(6), 442–445.