What Is Upper Crossed Syndrome? Here's How To Know + What To Do

If you catch yourself slouching at your desk, you may think that it's just an instance of bad posture. Hate to break it to you, but there's a chance it could be more than that. You could have upper crossed syndrome—which, lucky for you, can be corrected. But first you have to diagnose it.

It sounds bad, right? Like this is a syndrome we're talking about. Not exactly. Upper crossed syndrome is surprisingly common and easy to develop.

So, what is it?

"Upper crossed syndrome is a term coined by a Czech neurologist and physiotherapist who noticed consistent patterns in muscles of the upper body—namely that some are commonly tight and some are commonly weak," says Sarah Kostyukovsky, DPT. "It's basically a muscle imbalance of the upper body where our upper back muscles—like the muscles between our shoulder blades—become weak and our neck and pectoral muscles are tight."

When our muscles are tight or weak, there's usually a clear explanation. In the case of upper crossed syndrome, the symptoms can be traced back to our lifestyle and behavior, as well as our anatomy. We stare at our phones for hours on end. We slouch at our desks and hunch over computers. We walk and watch television with our heads jutted forward. We neglect the muscles in our upper backs during exercise and worse than that, we don't take time to stretch out or loosen tight muscles. We do this over and over and refuse to address it until we experience pain that inhibits our functioning. Is it any wonder that this syndrome is so common? 

Nervous that this might be you? It can be sort of hard to know. If you have neck pain, chronically rounded shoulders, or know for a fact that you have poor posture, you may have upper crossed syndrome.

The only way to be diagnosed, though, it to see a physician or physical therapist—so if you're experiencing any of these symptoms, it would be wise to seek one out. Once you do, you'll be able to work to counteract the upper body imbalances and prevent the tightness and weakness. 

Now, if you've had pain or bad posture for years, it can be tempting to do nothing about it and continue living your life. I'm not sure why we take on this mindset, and it's a dangerous one. Not only does ignoring an injury or pain almost always make it worse, but not correcting your posture can have some serious (or irreversible) long-term consequences—like chronic pain and fixed postural deformities.