Your desk
This page does more for your neck than all five trainings put together. Not because it’s clever — because of the hours.
~40hA week at your desk
~3hA week training
60sPer hour is enough
Your neck spends about forty hours a week in the position that bothers it, and about three hours being trained out of it.
Training still works. It just cannot out-vote the forty. That is the entire reason this page exists.
Fix the setup once
Five minutes, one time. Then it works every day without you doing anything.
Top of the screen at eye levelThe biggest one by a distance. A low screen forces the exact head position we are fixing, 8 hours a day.Do first
Not a bare laptop on the deskThe screen and the keyboard cannot both be right. If you work on a flat laptop, that alone explains the finding.Do first
Screen about an arm’s length awayToo far and you lean in, which is forward head with extra steps.Check
Elbows supportedUnsupported arms hang off your upper traps all day. Relevant to that left shoulder.Check
Hips level with or above your kneesSitting low rolls your pelvis back and rounds everything above it.Check
Your phoneLooking down at a phone is the identical position, and it never gets counted. Two hours of evening phone cancels a good desk.Check
A stack of books works. Under a monitor or under a laptop. It does not need to be a product.
Send Anna one photo of you sitting at your desk, from the side. That answers all six rows above at once.
The hourly reset
Under a minute, once an hour. Frequency is the point — you are interrupting a long hold, not doing a workout.
60 secondsEvery hour, at your desk
Stand up5s
That is the actual intervention. Everything below is a bonus.Chin tucks10 reps
Make a double chin, hold 2 seconds, release. Standing, looking straight ahead.Feel: deep at the front of your throat. Not: a pinch at the base of your skull.Wall reach5 reps
Back to the wall, forearms on the wall, slide them up as far as you can without your lower back leaving the wall.Watch: the moment your back lifts off, that is your range. Do not cheat past it.Sit back down—
Done. That is the whole thing.
Make it automatic. One repeating alarm on the hour, or bolt it onto something that already happens — a coffee, a meeting ending, standing up anyway. A brand new standalone habit almost never survives. One attached to an old habit usually does.
Your walks
You already walk. That is the best habit in this entire plan and nothing here competes with it.
Give the walk one job: the first two minutes are chin tucks and shoulder rolls, while walking. Nothing new gets added to your day, and the thing that most needs daily frequency gets it.
Two minutes, right now, at the desk
Not a training. Just the fastest way to feel better in the middle of a working day.
Chair-back thoracic extension10 slow
Sit back, hands behind your head, lean back over the backrest so it hinges your upper back. Breathe out as you go back.Feel: your upper back opening. Not: your lower back doing the bending.Shoulder reach hold30s each
One hand over your shoulder from above, the other up your back. Hold where it is uncomfortable but never sharp.Watch: chest tall. Do not round your back to reach further.Doorway chest opener30s each
Forearm on the door frame, elbow at shoulder height, turn away from it gently.Feel: across the front of your chest and shoulder.If you only remember one thing
Raise your screen, and stand up once an hour.
Everything else on this site is worth doing. But those two are free, they take five minutes to set up, and they work on the forty hours instead of the three.