The Comparison of Effect of Three Programs of Strengthening, Stretching and Comprehensive on Upper Crossed Syndrome

Abstract

Introduction: Upper crossed syndrome is a form of muscle skeletal system involvement that leads muscles of the anterior and upper trunk be short and tight and the posterior part of the muscles be weak. Janda Upper cross syndrome mostly associated with abnormalities of the forward head , forward shoulder, away scapula and increased thoracic kyphosis and will cause wide variations in a quarter of the upper body. Common methods of correcting these abnormalities are corrective exercises. The Purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of strength training, stretch training and comprehensive training in patients with upper crossed syndrome. Materials and Methods: Forty females students with excessive forward head > 46 ﹾﹾ , forward shoulder > 52 ﹾﹾ and kyphosis > 42 ﹾﹾ angle were chosen as samples using purposive sampling method. The average of age 22.22 ± 1.77 years, weight 61/2.2 ± 1.90 kg, height 161.85 ± 2.55 cm and body mass index of the samples 23.37 ± 0.90 kg/m 2 . The subjects were randomly divided into four groups of 10 experimental and control groups. The first experimental group performed strength training, second group stretch training and third group comprehensive training for 6 weeks. In this period, the control group did not receive any training. In this study, photogrammetric method technique was used to measure the angle of the forward head and forward shoulder. A flexible ruler was used to measure the angle of kyphosis (r = 0.93). Angle of forward head, forward shoulder and kyphosis was measured before and after 6 weeks. data were analyzed using paired t-test and SPSS (P ≤ 0.05). Results: According to in study, paired T-test results in the experimental group showed that the significant decrease in the angle forward shoulder (P = 0.001), forward head (P = 0.005) and kyphosis (P = 0.001) of three types of exercise (strengthing, stretching, comprehensive) was found after 6 weeks. However, a significant decrease in the angle of forward head and shoulder and kyphosis was not found in the control group. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that between the effects of different exercises on the forward shoulder angle (p = 0.001), forward head angle (P = 0.001) and kyphosis angle (P = 0.001) there are significant difference. According to the tukey test results, implementation of corrective exercises, strengthing (P = 0.001), stretching (P = 0.001), and comprehensive (P = 0.001) there is a significant difference with the control group. However between the strength training groups, stretching and comprehensive with each other in forward shoulder group, no significant difference was observed. While between of effect the comprehensive training in forward head and kyphosis abnormalities was significant difference compared to other exercises. Conclusion: Forward head and kyphosis angle decreased in the comprehensive group compared to other training programs, showed the Better efficiency of this training program. While between the group strength training, stretching and comprehensive with each other on the forward shoulder significant difference was not found. Importantly, the data showed that although there is no significant difference in the training program. However, statistical trends and the effectiveness has been more of the comprehensive training program. The results demonstrated a significant decrease in the angle of forward head, forward shoulder and kyphosis in the experimental group. Therefore, using this program is recommended in subjects with upper crossed syndrome deformity.