Participants were given a list and description (with illustrations) of each exercise and were required to demonstrate their ability to perform each exercise cor- rectly. The program consisted of two strengthening (deep cervical flexors and shoulder retractors) and two stretching (cervical extensors and pectoral muscles) exercises based on Kendall et al's approach*^. The exer- cises involved (a) chin tucks in supine lying with the head in contact with the floor (the progression of this exercise was to lift head off floor in tucked position and hold it for varying lengths of time), (b) a chin drop in sitting (c) shoulder retraction first in standing using TherabandTM and then progressed to shoulder retraction in prone using weights, and (d) unilateral and bilateral pectoralis stretches alternating each 2-week period (see Table 1 for descriptions and progressions).
Participants were instructed to complete 3 sets of 12 repetitions of the strengthening exercises and 3 stretching exercises held for 30 seconds each. This pro- gram was to be repeated 4 times per week. In addition, participants recorded an exercise log documenting the number of exercises and