If you spend any amount of time on your phone, at a desk, or behind a steering wheel, there’s a good chance your head is sitting further forward than it should be. It’s called forward head posture, and it’s one of the most common postural issues I see in my Richmond chiropractic office.

The problem isn’t just cosmetic. For every inch your head shifts forward past your shoulders, your neck and upper back muscles have to work significantly harder to hold it up. Over time, that extra load leads to neck pain, tension headaches, upper back stiffness, and sometimes even jaw issues. The good news is that forward head posture is correctable, and it doesn’t require expensive equipment or hours in the gym.

I had a patient come in last month who’d been dealing with headaches for over 2 years. Her head was sitting almost 3 inches forward. Within a few weeks of adjustments and the exercises below, her headaches dropped by 90%.

What Actually Causes Forward Head Posture?

Forward head posture doesn’t happen overnight. It develops gradually as your body adapts to the positions you spend the most time in. The most common contributors I see in my patients include:

• Screen time — prolonged phone use with the head tilted down
• Desk ergonomics — desk setups where the monitor sits too low or too far away
• Driving — extended time behind the wheel, especially for commuters
• Sleeping position — sleeping on pillows that push the head forward
• Thoracic kyphosis — rounded upper back posture that forces the head to compensate forward

What’s happening structurally is that the deep neck flexor muscles on the front of your neck become weak and inhibited, while the muscles on the back of your neck and upper traps become overworked and tight. Your body is smart — it adapts to whatever position you put it in most often. The goal of corrective exercise is to reverse that pattern.

Why I Start Exercises on Day One

Some practitioners take the approach of adjusting first and adding exercises later. I do it differently. In my practice, I start patients on corrective exercises from their very first visit alongside chiropractic adjustments.

Here’s why: the adjustment restores proper joint motion and takes pressure off your nervous system. But if we don’t also retrain the muscles that hold your head in the right position, your body will default back to its old pattern. The adjustment opens the window. The exercises teach your body to stay there.

The adjustments themselves work great, but you need to adjust what you are doing outside of the office to make a huge impact on how you’re improving. Pairing the adjustments with corrective exercises really make a difference in how your body functions.

The Exercise I Prescribe Most for Forward Head Posture

If I could only give a patient one exercise for forward head posture, it would be the chin tuck. It’s not flashy. It doesn’t require any equipment. But it directly targets the deep cervical flexors — the muscles that are almost always weak and underactive in people with forward head posture.

How to Perform a Chin Tuck

1. Sit or stand with your back straight and your shoulders relaxed.
2. Without tilting your head up or down, draw your chin straight back as if you’re making a double chin. Think about pulling the back of your head toward the wall behind you.
3. Hold for 3-5 seconds. You should feel a gentle stretch at the base of your skull and mild activation in the front of your neck.
4. Release slowly and repeat.

Start with 3 sets of 10 reps, two to three times per day. The key is consistency, not intensity. This exercise works because it’s retraining a motor pattern — you’re teaching your deep neck flexors to activate again after potentially years of being dormant.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Don’t look down — tucking your chin to your chest. The movement is horizontal, not downward.
• Don’t force it — if you’re straining your jaw or feeling pain, you’re pushing too hard. This should feel like mild effort, not a workout.
• Don’t skip days — doing 50 reps once a week won’t help. Doing 10 reps three times a day will. Frequency matters far more than volume with postural retraining.

When Exercises Alone Aren’t Enough

Chin tucks and other corrective exercises are powerful, but they have limits. If your forward head posture has been developing for years, there’s a good chance you also have joint restrictions in your cervical and thoracic spine that exercises alone can’t address. Stiff joints change how your muscles fire, which makes it harder for exercises to do their job.

That’s where chiropractic adjustments come in. The adjustment restores mobility to the joints that are locked up, which allows the surrounding muscles to function properly again. When you combine adjustments with targeted exercises like chin tucks, you’re addressing both the joint restriction and the muscle imbalance at the same time. That’s the fastest path to lasting correction.

How Long Does It Take to Fix Forward Head Posture?

This is one of the most common questions I get, and the honest answer is: it depends. Mild forward head posture in someone who’s otherwise active and healthy can show noticeable improvement in two to four weeks with consistent exercises and adjustments. More significant cases — especially in patients who’ve had poor posture for decades — may take two to three months (or more) to see meaningful structural change.

The most important factor isn’t severity. It’s consistency. Patients who do their chin tucks daily and keep their adjustment schedule consistently see faster and more lasting results than patients who only do the exercises when they remember. Remember, we’re not looking for perfect, we’re looking for improvement and better overall function.

Ready to Fix Your Forward Head Posture?

If you’re dealing with neck pain, headaches, or upper back tension and suspect your posture might be part of the problem, I’d recommend starting with the chin tuck exercises above today. They’re free, they’re simple, and they work.

If you want a full posture assessment and a personalized correction plan that includes chiropractic adjustments and targeted exercises, we’re here to help. At Jamison Family Chiropractic in Richmond, VA, we take a hands-on approach to posture correction from day one — because getting you out of pain and keeping you there is the whole point.

Click here to Schedule Your Appointment or call us at 804-432-1494.