Why do neck muscles get tight and weak

I often incorporate neck exercises for my clients, and I get a lot of questions about how they affect the pelvic floor or abdominal muscles and about why they get tight and weak.

First, what does my neck have to do with my pelvic floor?

Remember the leg bone is connected to the pelvic bone? Well it goes way beyond that. There are fascial connections throughout your body that mean every part of your body is connected to every other part. Your big toe is connected to your neck! Now, connecting your big toe to your neck is complicated, but it is a lot easier to understand the connection from your neck to your abdominal muscles and pelvic floor muscles. There are fascial layers that directly connect from the neck to the pelvic floor. In addition, the neck is the top of the spine and the pelvic floor is at the bottom of the spine. When one portion of the spine moves the muscles supporting over spinal joints are also involved in stabilizing for pressure changes.

Now to explain why the neck muscles get tight and weak or long and weak

Check out the difference in my neck alignment in these pictures.

Here, I am demonstrating a “forward head posture”. This is a commonly adopted position to view a computer screen while sitting at a desk. My lower neck is bent forward and my upper neck is in extreme extension.

In this image, it is easy to see the extreme angle that occurs in the upper cervical region in the forward head position. I find it helpful to visualize the extension on it’s own to really understand the extreme angle.

Here, I am demonstrating a neutral spine position in the neck or cervical spine. This image is for comparison. A natural curve is clearly visible should be present. This curvature is normal and desirable.

Our world has changed so much. We spend way too much time sitting, staring at screens, and working on visualizing close objects. We lean in to get close to those objects, it makes sense, but we need to adopt healthier positions or make corrections for the unhealthy positions we utilize.

The extreme angle that occurs in our upper cervical spine causes the muscles at the back of the neck to shorten over time and the muscles at the front of the neck to lengthen. Muscles are weak when they are too short or too long. This means neither set of muscles can be strong!

This video will help you lengthen the muscles at the back of your spine

This video will help you strengthen the muscles at the front of your neck

Now use the muscles better! When you are doing more advanced abdominal exercises make sure you are maintaining a chin tuck with a head lift. Your neck will thank you, and your exercises will be more effective.