hey everybody it's Doctor Jo, and today I'm going to show you my top 5 neck
stretches. so let's get started.
before we get started with the stretches, a lot of you asked do you need to warm
up before you stretch. and the simple answer is yes. but sometimes if you have
neck pain or if you're just trying to stretch your neck in general, it's kind
of hard to warm up those neck muscles. usually if it's in the legs you can kind
of you know March or do jumping jacks or walk real fast for a while, but with the
neck it's a little bit harder. so a lot of times I'll tell people just to put on
a heat wrap for about 10 to 15 minutes before and the warmth will help kind of
loosen up those muscles to go into the stretch. so the folks at biomed DB Design
LLC sent me their sunny Bay unscented hands-free neck wrap. and so what's
really cool about this is not only does it just fit around the neck very nicely,
but you can just heat it up by microwaving it for about a minute and
then you can flip it over and just do ten second increments to get it to your
comfort level. so once you have it heated up you can place it around your neck for
about 10 to 15 minutes, maybe even five minutes, just to warm up those neck
muscles before you go into the stretches will really really help because that
just kind of gets everything loosened up. and they they come in a couple different
colors. so if you're interested in purchasing them make sure and click on
the link up there. so after you get that nice and warmed up, you'll you'll kind of
feel that it feels a little bit looser as well and then go into the stretches.
so the first stretch is going to be an upper trap stretch. and that's those
muscles up in here. so the best way to stretch that is just take the hand on
the side that you want to stretch and sit on it. you don't have to sit on it if
it's uncomfortable, but you want to try and push your arm down to keep that
shoulder dow.n if you aren't comfortable doing either one of those, you don't have
to, but again it just holds it down to give you a better stretch. take the other
hand and then just gently pull away from that side kind of bringing your ear
towards the other shoulder, and you should feel that stretch kind of right
in through here. and you want it to be a good comfortable stretch, nothing where
it's painful, but that kind of good hurt. and then you want to hold it for 30
seconds. do the 3 on each side if you have
neck pain, even if you're just having neck pain on one side I'd really
recommend doing both sides. so 30 seconds, I like to alternate each side just to
give it a kind of a break in between and do that three times on each side. so the
next stretch is going to be for your levator scapulae. and that brings up
those shoulder blades or your scapula, and the reason that this one gets really
tight and it's important to stretch it out because it causes a lot of neck pain
because that's kind of where we hold our stress. our levator scapulae muscle
brings those shoulders up, or elevates those those shoulder blades, so when
we're kind of stressed out or working on the computer for a long time, we kind of
tend to crunch up like this, and so stretching those out really helps
relieve some of that neck pain. so this time the side that you want to stretch
you're going to kind of bring your arm up where you want to get your elbow
pointing towards the ceiling as much as you can. if you can't do that this is
okay, you can just kind of raise your arm. if you can't do that either, that's okay,
you can do this stretch without this but again this kind of helps hold that
shoulder blade or that scapula down to give you a better stretch. so this time
you're gonna put your hand behind your head and what you want to do is you want
to come down at an angle. you want to kind of take your nose and stretch down
towards your opposite knee. so it's not right in front of you, it's not out to
the side like the upper trap stretch, but it's kind of at an angle that way. so I'm
pulling over this way bringing that elbow up towards the ceiling as much as
I can. and you should feel that stretch right through there. so same thing 30
seconds, 3 on each side. alternate if you can and then come back through this way
and then hold that for 30 seconds. so the next stretch is an anterior scalene
stretch. this is the neck muscles in the front here, so a great way to stretch
that out is take the hand of the opposite side you're going to stretch. so
if I'm stretching this side I'm just gonna place my hand kind of on my collar
bone or that clavicle bone right there. and this is again just to kind of help
pull down when you're stretching. and then you're gonna take your head, turn it
away, and then bring your ear up towards the ceiling as you pull down a little
bit. and you should feel that stretch right in through here. so again this is a
30-second hold and then alternates side. so then you're turning, holding here,
lifting that ear up, and kind of pulling down. when you stretch, you don't have to
do this part, but you I always feel a little bit better stretch when I kind of
pull down that way just to get that extra stretch. then again 30 seconds 3
times on each side. so then the next one is going to be a
chin tuck. chin tucks are kind of a stretch kind of an exercise, so sometimes
you'll see it in both, but I really do feel like it's a good stretch just to
kind of reset all the muscles and stretch them out a little bit. a lot of
times with neck pain, it comes from if you're doing something
focusing on something. a lot of time specially when you're working on a
computer, you kind of start leaning forward like this, and then you over
stretch all these muscles in your neck area, and doing some chin tucks kind of
helps reset that. so with a chin tuck, it's not tucking down like this, but it's
actually taking your chin and tucking it back in, or just moving your whole head
back. so I like to kind of put my finger on my chin, you don't have to but just
use it as a target. so you would leave your finger there and then tuck your
chin and see how lots of little Chins right there, and then hold that for about
five seconds. you want to give it a nice big hold, and then when you relax usually
you have a little bit of space in between, and that just shows that you're
kind of resetting the muscles. so I think it's sometimes nice to see that visual
feedback that you probably have been doing this for awhile, and if you just
tuck it in hold that stretch for about that five seconds, and do maybe three to
five of those, that kind of helps reset those muscles. so it's just a really nice
way to kind of get everything reset. and then the last stretch you're going to
use a towel to help you stretch, and these are called snags. and so basically
with the snags, you're kind of holding one segment in place with the towel and
then stretching. so it's just a really great way to help get rid of some of
that neck pain. just make sure you don't choke yourself with the towel. so you're
just going to kind of put it around you. and then the side that you want to
stretch, you're gonna grab here and then you're going to anchor the other side
down like this. see how my hands are kind of crossed here. I'm gonna take this side
and bring it up at an angle kind of on my ear. so I don't want it
to be here on my neck, but I'm gonna bring it up right over my ear, and I'm
gonna take it up and over. so it's kind of gonna be at an angle, not just
straight across. so I'm coming up over my ear, I'm pulling down this way, pulling up
that way, so this is just really giving me a nice good stretch. you can pull back
just a little bit if that's comfortable while you're holding this to kind of
stabilize that bottom. so again holding for about 30 seconds, doing three on each
side. so then when I switch, I'm going to anchor here and then I'm going to pull
up and over that ear down this way, up this way, to get that nice stretch in
there. so if this one since you have to kind of pull and use some some effort in
your arm, if you can't hold it for that quite thirty Seconds, ten to fifteen
seconds is okay, just then do a couple more on each side. so there you have it
those were my top five neck stretches. what's also cool about this "cool," is you
can also put it in the freezer for about sixty minutes or an hour and then cool
those neck muscles down after you stretch and exercise them. so this is a
really cool thing where you can heat it up to get your muscles warmed up and
then cool it down after you've done the exercises. so if you'd like to purchase
the product make sure to click on the link up there, and don't forget to
subscribe by clicking down there. and remember, be safe, have fun, and I hope you
feel better soon.