The human body was designed to move, hunt, and gather. It was decidedly not designed to sit in a Zoom meeting for 6 hours straight.
Most of my clients at The Cove come in with what we call "Upper Cross Syndrome"—rounded shoulders, a forward head posture, and a tight chest. This isn't just an aesthetic issue; it's a mechanical one that leads to headaches, rotator cuff impingement, and chronic lower back pain.
A common mistake people make is trying to fix this by just "stretching where it hurts."
If your upper back hurts, you stretch your upper back. But in reality, your upper back muscles (rhomboids) are likely already over-stretched and weak from being hunched forward. Stretching them more just makes the problem worse.
Musculoskeletal Therapy (MST) treats posture as a system of pulleys. To fix the rounded shoulders, we don't just treat the back; we have to release the front.
First, we use deep tissue work and MST techniques to release the tight muscles pulling you forward—usually the Pectorals (chest) and Upper Trapezius.
Once the soft tissue is released, we work on the joint mechanics. If your thoracic spine (mid-back) is stiff, no amount of muscle work will let you stand up straight. We use mobilization techniques to unlock that stiffness.
Finally, we need to wake up the muscles that hold you upright. This is where personalized stretching and activation drills come in. We teach your body how to hold this new, better position so you don't slump back down the moment you leave the clinic.
You don't have to live with the "desk hunch." Come and see me for an MST session and let's reset your mechanics. Now located inside Train West Van.