27/09/2025
Back, neck and shoulder massage not cutting it anymore?
Many people experience aching, stiffness and sometimes even pain in the upper shoulders and neck area. The most common thing to want to do is to rub them, which definitely makes us feel a bit better in the short term. 
But what about long-term? The muscles that we’re rubbing here are muscles that are responsible for keeping us upright. But often our lifestyles are working against these muscles and putting them under the considerable strain.
We’re bent forward working at laptops, looking at phones and even bracing ourselves against the winter rain and wind. Meanwhile, these muscles becoming more and more stretched, under strain from having to hold the head in fixed position on the proposing muscles at the front of the neck and upper chest area are insufficiently used and become less mobile.
The best position for the skull set to be centred over the spine, distributing the weight right down via the vertebrae and discs. This means that treatment for whole posture needs to focus on bringing the skull back and rather than stretching the muscles at the back, we need to focus on opening up the muscles at the front.
One of those muscles as longus colli, pictured here. As you can imagine a tightness in this muscle will anchor the skull and make it difficult for it to be in its optimal position.
A good approach for treatment includes opening up the front of the neck and the upper chest muscles to allow the shoulders to sit back, the chest to open up and the neck to move back. This takes the pressure off the muscles at the back of the neck and shoulders and they were able to return to a more optimal position, and strengthening is used to develop their ability to hold it.
If poor posture is not addressed it will worsen over time, you may have or develop a hump, and symptoms may become more painful and degenerative changes in the vertebra of the neck can be the result.
It’s not too late to correct your posture. It’s not about how you look but how it restricts and affects the rest of your body.
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