Effectiveness of Eight Weeks of Corrective Exercises in Water on Postural Status of Young Men With Upper Crossed Syndrome: A Randomized Controlled Clinical Trial

Upper Crossed Syndrome (UCS) is a musculoskeletal disorder leading to postural deformities such as forward head posture (FHP), rounded shoulder posture (RSP) and hyper kyphosis. This abnormality has spread among people in the community due to modern lifestyle and excessive use of communication technologies. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the effect of the eight -week comprehensive corrective exercises carried out in water on forward head, rounded shoulder, and hyper kyphosis as well as pain correction in men with UCS.

In the current randomized controlled clinical trial, The minimum number of samples was determined using G.Power 3.1 sample size estimation software, 30 people. After initial screening 200 students using the posture screen, including a possible drop of 5% in the research process, 34 men with upper crossed syndrome, with mean age of 23 ± 0.80 years, weight 71.61 ± 2.2 kg, height of 171.75 ± 1.24 Cm And body mass index of 23.60 ±.67 Kg / m2), they were purposefully selected. These individuals were randomly divided into two groups: experimental (n = 17) and control (n = 17). The case group experienced comprehensive corrective exercises carried out in water for eight weeks and the control group received no intervention during this period. Before and after the intervention, measurements were performed to measure the forward head and rounded shoulder angles by imaging and angular analysis was done by AutoCAD software and kyphosis angle was determined by flexible ruler. Data were analyzed by SPSS software and the significance level was considered 0.05. Paired t-test was used to compare within the group and independent t-test was used to compare the mean differences between the groups.

The results showed that the experimental group had significant improvement in in terms of the kyphosis (P= 0.001), FHP (P=0.001) and RSP (P=0.001).

According to the results, Eight weeks of corrective exercises in the water environment can be significantly effective in reducing the angle of the head forward, round shoulder and hyper kyphosis in people with upper cross syndrome, and it can be recommended to specialists as a treatment.