Wall Crawl is a gentle posture-reset exercise that uses the wall as a guide to retrain your shoulders and upper back into their natural, upright position.
When to do this exercise
- After your chiropractic adjustment to help protect and maintain the correction
- A few times throughout the day — Dr. Smith does it two to three times daily
- Anytime you notice yourself slumping forward, especially after long stretches at a computer or desk
How to do it
- Stand with your back flat against a wall so that your buttocks, shoulders, elbows, and wrists are all touching the wall.
- Before you begin moving, gently retract your shoulder blades — squeeze them together slightly toward your spine.
- Keeping everything in contact with the wall, slowly slide both hands upward along the wall as far as you comfortably can.
- Focus on maintaining that shoulder-blade retraction throughout the entire movement — this is what creates the beneficial stretch between the shoulder blades.
- Slide your hands back down and repeat for a few comfortable repetitions. You should feel a noticeable pull between your shoulder blades when you're doing it correctly.
Common mistakes
- Letting the arms lift away from the wall — if your elbows or wrists lose contact, the exercise loses its effectiveness.
- Skipping the shoulder-blade retraction — sliding your arms up without squeezing the shoulder blades together turns this into a passive motion with little benefit.
- Going too hard or too fast — this exercise is designed to relax and reset your posture, not to build strength. Keep the movement slow and gentle.
- Pushing through pain — if anything hurts, stop immediately and let Dr. Smith know at your next visit. "No pain, no gain" does not apply here.
- Doing too many repetitions — a few gentle reps are all you need. More is not better with this one.
Why it helps
Throughout the day, activities like working at a computer tend to pull your head forward and round your shoulders, creating stress on the cervical and upper thoracic spine. The Wall Crawl works by cueing your shoulder blades to retract and your thoracic spine to extend — the opposite of that forward-slumping pattern. By performing this movement against a flat wall, you get immediate tactile feedback that keeps your body in proper alignment during the stretch. Done consistently, it helps reinforce the postural corrections achieved through your upper cervical adjustment and reduces the muscular tension that can pull your spine out of alignment over time.