July 15, 2026
Neutral Spine Conditioning Phase (Levels 5-8)

What is a Head-up?

A head-up consists of rotating your skull posteriorly on C1 past its neutral position (Head Nod). This ensures that you don’t slide into forward head posture during the curl-up which can throw your neck out of alignment.

Having the upper neck strength to curl your head off the floor without forward head posture is a key physical wellness milestone for long-term injury management and prevention of neck pain.  The Level 5 workout within the Healthy Posture System™ teaches you how to flex your skull back on C1 past neutral (Head Nod).  We refer to these as a “head-ups”.  We ask you to perform 4 head-ups then hold the 4th head-up for 8 to 12 seconds.  This prepares you for curl-ups which are added at level 6.

Head-ups:

A head-up consists of rotating your skull posteriorly on C1 past its neutral position (Head Nod).  This ensures that you don’t slide into forward head posture during the curl-up which can throw your neck out of alignment.

Summary:

Conditioning yourself to do a healthy head-up strengthens your O-A flexors to maintain a healthy position of the skull on C1 during functional activities.  Conditioning yourself to hold a 12-second head-up is a critical milestone for advancing to level 6 of the Healthy Posture System™.

Don’t forget to use the SafeProgress feature within the PostureIQ dashboard to let us confirm your are doing your exercises properly.

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