Greetings!
Strength training on top quality, medical-grade exercise machines, such as used at New Element Training, offers many unique advantages. For example, through those machines we could directly target and very effectively strengthen various small, weakened, and hard-to-get-to muscles in our body (e.g., deep lumbar extensor muscles of the back, or infraspinatus muscles of the shoulder griddle, etc). In this week's newsletter we decided to talk about a common muscle imbalance condition, a hunched back, and how NET's C5 (rowing torso) and G4-5 (4-way neck) machines could be used to prevent or decrease that condition. Enjoy the read!
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Muscle Imbalance: Upper Cross Syndrome and C5, G4-5 machines.
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 | | Lisa Tai |
Desk jobs are all too common in today's workforce. Due to the nature of these jobs, we become restricted to the confines of our chairs for many hours at a time, often without break. As a result, we begin to develop various muscle imbalance syndromes, one of these syndromes is a hunch-back posture as our neck creeps downward and our shoulders roll forward.
When thinking of people required to be in a seated position and looking at a screen as part of their work, the image of Quasimodo and his characteristic hunched back comes to mind.
Dr. Vladimir Janda coined the term, Upper Crossed Syndrome. Upper Crossed Syndrome is the muscular imbalance pattern at the head/neck region as well as the upper back. What characterizes this syndrome are:
- Deep weak neck flexor muscles
- Tight chest muscles
- Tight upper shoulder muscles
- Weak shoulder blade muscles
 | | Courtesy of www.thechilterncentre.co.uk |
These characteristics are typically found among:
- Individuals sitting for long periods:
- Office workers (sitting for 8+ hours)
- Everyday computer usage (work/video games)
- Athletes (swimmers, paddlers - canoe sprint, dragon boat or kayak)
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What can we do to prevent/decrease these symptoms?
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This is where the C5 machine (Rowing Torso) comes in. The C5 machine focuses on the rhomboid, trapezius (middle fibres) and posterior deltoid muscles. With this machine, we effectively strengthen these muscles by squeezing the shoulder blades toward the spine, thus bringing our shoulders into a more neutral position and correcting the hunched-back appearance.
 | | Rowing Torso |
Tips on C5: make sure to sit straight; keep chest in contact with chest pad; the elbows have to be the same level or lower than shoulders (lower the elbows, the easier it is to do the movement), but never higher; as the arms retract back make sure to always have the shoulders down and back; focus on retracting your scapula during the entire range of motion; hold the weight for 2 sec at the fully contracted position; ALWAYS perform slow, smooth and control repetition in a perfect form.
The G5 (rear neck) and G4 (front neck) exercises on the 4-Way Neck machine can also be used to supplement the C5 by isolating and activating the erector muscles of spine, upper trapezius (G5) and anterior scalene and long muscles of head (G4), bringing the head into a neutral position. Current clients using this machine have reported the progressive alleviation of their neck pains with each workout.
 | | Rear Neck |
Tips on G4-5: sight straight; hold the handles in front of you to make sure your upper body DOES NOT move during the movement of your head (if it does it would put your body off the perfect axis of rotation for your neck); relax your shoulders; make yourself taller as you move your head back or forward; hold the weight for 2 seconds at the contracted position; ALWAYS perform slow, smooth and control repetition in a perfect form.
We can complement the C5 and G4-5 machines with stretching breaks every 20-30 minutes (focusing on the chest muscles) or sitting on a yoga ball instead of a regular office chair at work.
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If you know of someone who suffers from hunched back appearance, forward this article by clicking the link below:
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