Help! Neck posture problem?

[KarateKid]

About 6 years ago I had an accident where I went flying over the handlebars of a mountain bike and landed on the back of my head, over flexing my neck. As a result I had an anterior tear drop fracture at the front of my neck (C2) and a compression fracture in my spine (T5).

3 years ago I developed some kind of RSI, and no matter what I do I've been unable to fix it. It was only until this week that I finally found out what is causing it.

The physio I've been seeing gave me a suboccipital stretch. Basically as I hold the stretch where I poke my chin forward, muscles in my cheek seem to return, making me look more youthful and stopping my jaw from locking, also my trapezius comes back into action (feels like I have an extra layer of muscle between my spine and the bed when I lay down, my back neck muscles feel stronger and I can squeeze my shoulder blades together) which seems to fix my RSI. Does this imply that I have some nerves trapped/irritated?

I realise I've got a few problems in my neck, my worry is that some of the muscles haven't been built up. My ear is in front of my shoulder when I stand straight (which implies forward head posture), but I worry because in all the people I see with a forward head posture you can see their adam's apple, where as mine is hidden. Plus I wonder if my longus colli would have been damaged in my accident, and that perhaps my neck extensors are weak...

If anyone could help me determine what I can do to improve my neck posture I'd be most thankful, I've been doing all types of exercises and stretches for two years to try and fix this. Any help would be appreciated!

[Ruth]

Hi KarateKid,

It may well be that your muscles initially spasmed to protect the injury you sustained in your neck, and if this was not rectified with early physiotherapy and rehabilitation, these muscles could have become shortened and tight.

This could explain why doing the suboccipital stretches recommended by your physio makes things feel better, as it's relaxing off the tension in these muscles.

If you feel these stretches are helping it is important to feed this back to your physio and also any other information, to ensure that you can progress your rehab and develop further.

If you are still concerned about your neck posture bring this up with your physio, they will be able to assess this and also assess the different muscles to see whether any are particularly weak or tight.