Chin tuck exercise · Neck pain · St. Louis · Regen.MD physiotherapy
Chin tuck exercise:
put your head back over your spine
The chin tuck is a home exercise that reawakens the deep stabilizers lying along the front of the neck. From a tall seat or stance, draw your chin straight backward, the classic double-chin look, while your eyes stay fixed on the horizon. That position is held 5 seconds, and the set is 10.
Only the exercises your physician has ticked on your home plan are yours to do. Twice daily is the rhythm unless the written plan says something different.
Step by step: chin tuck exercise
- Starting position. Tall posture. A firm kitchen chair works, or stand with your shoulder blades close to a wall.
- The motion. Draw the chin backward along a flat, level track until a double chin appears. Eyes stay on the horizon; the head never tips toward the floor.
- How much. A 5-second hold, ten times through.
What the chin tuck does for tissue repair
The deep neck flexors are the stabilizers that keep the head stacked over the spine. When they go quiet, the big muscles on the back and sides of the neck clamp down and take on a job they were never built for. Waking the small ones up first gives any neck treatment, an injection included, a steadier base to work on.
Fresh from an injection? Read this first
After a PRP or other orthobiologic injection in your neck, the treated tissue needs a protected stretch of days before it is asked to work. Your physician tells you when this exercise comes back. When it does, start with fewer repetitions and build to the full dose over the following visits. Loading in steps like this is how the repair signal from the injection turns into stronger tissue.
More on that: why load is the treatment an injection cannot supply.
Form errors we correct most often
- Nodding toward your lap. The track is backward, never downward.
- Cranking hard. Think of a short, soft glide.
- Letting the shoulders ride up while the chin travels back.
Signs that mean stop and phone us
Feeling the muscle work, a gentle pull, or some next-day stiffness is normal. Call us at (314) 295-3000 if you notice:
- Pain that turns sharp or stabbing
- A pain score that climbs 2 or more points and stays up longer than an hour
- New numbness, tingling or loss of strength
- Feeling dizzy, or your eyesight changing
Call 911, not the clinic, for chest pain, a hard time breathing or passing out.
Tracking what changes
Keep a short log: a check mark for each session and one pain score per day. Hand it over at each appointment; your technician tallies the sessions and has you perform one repetition so your form can be corrected. At each re-check you also repeat the same function questionnaire, and if your physician orders it, a Kinetisense 3D motion scan, so the change is measured instead of guessed.
What to remember
- Backward track, eyes level.
- Short and soft beats hard.
- Shoulders stay parked low.
Show us you have it: Before you go, do three chin tucks at your next visit while we watch the angle of your eyes. If a point is fuzzy, say so and we walk through it again with you.
The rest of the neck series
- Neck turn: turning range
- Side bend: side-of-neck stretch
- Shoulder blade squeeze: upper-back support
Related reading: pinched nerve in the neck: treatment without surgery, why the neck and shoulder have to be treated together.
Where this fits: the Regen.MD physiotherapy program, physician-directed rehab paired with our regenerative care. A physician must be in the building and reachable within moments before any treatment begins.