📖 Static demo — read-only snapshot

You’re browsing a static build of the Body IQ knowledge graph, so everything loads with no backend. A few things that need the live server are turned off here:

  • Global search (sidebar) is disabled — it queries the API.
  • The JSON API and the API “Try it” playgroundaren’t included.
  • The data is a snapshot — it refreshes only when the demo is rebuilt, not live from the database.

Everything else — the body map, progression ladders, coverage heatmap, exercise finder, and all anatomy/exercise/source pages — works fully. The full app (live search + API + database) runs from the source on GitHub.

Upper Cervical Extension

Atlantooccipital Joint • Cervical Spine • sagittal plane

Draft80%

Looking up at the atlanto-occipital joint. Chin poke motion.

Axis: medial-lateral

Clinical context

Evidence caveat: no published EMG % MVIC data isolates the upper cervical extensors (rectus capitis posterior major/minor, obliquus capitis superior/ inferior). Most cervical-extension research pools extensor groups together. Strongest evidence for upper-cervical-specific training is device-guided (Spinertial) craniocervical extension in cervicogenic headache populations (Pardos-Aguilella 2024). Label downstream prescriptions as moderate, not strong.

Normal Range of Motion

Atlantooccipital (upper cervical) extension is not measured by standard clinical goniometry and has no AAOS/Norkin & White reference value, so set to null. Anatomical/biomechanical studies estimate the O-C1 segment contributes roughly 10-15 deg of extension, but this is not a clinically measured goniometric normal.

Source: AAOS/Norkin & White (no isolated value); segmental estimate from White & Panjabi Clinical Biomechanics of the Spine

Muscles (2)

MuscleRoleNotes
Suboccipital MusclesPrimaryRectus capitis posterior major/minor, obliquus capitis superior
Semispinalis CapitisPrimaryPreferentially activated during upper cervical extension; T2 shifts at C2-3 (p=0.03) [Elliott 2010]

Exercises (3)

Upper Cervical (Suboccipital) Exercise with Release
Prone Cervical Extension
Upper Cervical Extension Control

Sources