The association between cervical excursion angles and cervical short flexor muscle endurance

Abstract

This study employed a randomly selected sample of 427 never-injured subjects to examine the relationship between poor posture and deep cervical short flexor muscle endurance. Poor posture was described as extreme angular excursion of both the upper and lower aspects of the cervical spine. For both men and women, poor deep cervical short flexor muscle endurance was associated only with extremely large excursion angles traced by the upper cervical spine, that is, head posture associated with excessive cervical lordosis rather than a forward translated head position. Further research is needed to clearly define poor cervical posture, and to investigate the specific relationship of deep short cervical flexor endurance with head on neck posture, in order that postural correction is specific to the underlying biomechanics.