'Text Neck' Why It's Not News and Good Drills and Exercises to Combat It

Just read an article put out by CNN on this new condition that's popping up called "Text Neck". Unfortunately I am going to have to play Buzz Killington here and shoot down the fact that this so called new condition is news, because it really isn't. I think at this point they are just trying to dig for health news, rather than leave it to those whose job it is to put out health related items as such.

They describe Text Neck or TN as I'm going to call it for my own sanity, as having the neck in a forward position and shoulders rounded forward. Correct me if I'm wrong, those of you out there that have been around the block and trained a person or 2, isn't this the same conditioing you get from either sitting at a desk on a computer all day or driving for numerous hours in a week constantly? Pretty sure office cubicles and computers were around far before texing and as for driving, the commercial car came out how many hundreds of years ago? Needless to say this condition has been around for a long time, they just now finally came up with a cool term to attach to it, maybe that's the only bit of news to give to it.

Now to the fun part, how in the holy gods green earth can we combat and or fix this situation TN? Number one is pretty plain and simple, get off of your thinker and start training. We will all be stuck in one of these situations sooner or later, so we have to combat it or you will end up with a really screwed up posture, big green scary block-headed creature comes to mind. Do you drive, write papers or tests, write e-mails or are you on your phone often? Then guess what chief you are in the same pattern, it's probably a solid 90% of America that are in this pattern so you won't be alone, trust me.

Training in general is a good step in the right direction, but it's only going to get you so far. Let's get those shoulders from rolling forward too much. I will post videos if not find videos from others for these. I will post videos of myself or from other professionals to demo this stuff. Take a softball, lacrosse ball or tennis ball and find a wall. Put the ball between you and the wall, and lean on it with the ball placed at the top of your chest, next to your arm pit. Roll yourself around on the ball in the general area, even down to your biceps a bit as well. Do this for about 30 seconds, and if you can stand it, up to a minute.

Next step is to get that area a bit more mobile now that it's not so still. Grab a foam roller, lay on your back and then roll to your side. Bring your top knee up so it and your hips are at about 90 degrees. Place the foam roller under your knee so we don't kick up your back. The arm that's on or closest to the floor should be extended to the sky. Other arm will move in a diagonal pattern from that bent knee to the floor over head, think thumb to knee and then thumb to ground. Don't go too crazy in moving fast as you are probably WICKED (yes it's a thing up here) tight, don't need any accidents here. Do 10 of those each side.

Final step here to fix this little issue is to get some rowing in, lock these muscles into our new posture. In this case I would go with some sort of single arm row; cable row, bench row, bent over row, TRX single arm row (yes it's doable and can be crazy hard, but effective) or whatever single arm row you've invented, really not gonna get too particular here. Get about 8 to 10 reps per side for the row. You can easily work this into any program before a rowing exercise, even if it's a two-arm row, it'll be better than not.

Hopefully this littl blurb educated someone out there and made them healthier. As always any questions, comments or concerns you can contact me directly or you can leave a comment on here. Always open to learning from other, until next time folks, get away from the dreaded TN.