Alright come on in folks we're going live on the Facebook
Hi folks I'm Bob Schrupp physical therapist, Brad Heineck physical therapist. Together we are the most famous physical therapists on the internet in our opinion of course Bob
Today Brad we're talking about seven easy exercises to stop that head forward posture, to correct it
That's right that sums it up right there and you know unfortunately I saw a video today that they called it nerd posture
I think that's very unfair to nerds
I got two nephews and they considered themselves nerds
Nerds rule the world now. They did have head forward posture but they're both in the military now and that fixed it
That shows you it can be corrected and that's exactly what we're gonna do today. By the way if you are new to our channel
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Please head over there and like us, Brad and I as children were not liked
And so now as adults we're trying to turn that all around and get lots of people to like us, my dog liked me
Really? Yup Rex did. That's even hard to believe. Okay let's start off with the first one Brad, what is the first exercise we're gonna do?
The first exercise, the whole concept when I did this video is
Things that you can do throughout the day
Incorporate them with your daily activities and you don't need a lot of special equipment
that's gonna cost you some money. That's a good idea Brad because I think people if they feel like they have to
designate a certain time of the day for exercise
They often don't get to it and this is one that you need to work on constantly
So it's good one to incorporate too. So lay down like you're getting out of bed in the morning
Alright you gotta be supine
Supine Bob on your back that means on your back, to the layperson, and if you have a pillow you
Want to remove the pillow okay so you're flat on the mattress and we're just gonna do some
First some gentle chin tucks. You're never gonna start in the morning getting out of bed doing exercises
nothing starts real quick you know, your body has been
sedentary all night, not moving so to speak and we need to
Gently warm things up, tucking my chin in, it's a real subtle movement because I
actually would probably show better with a rolled towel Brad. I think actually when you start these Brad you might even want
to have a roll towel by your bed and just put It underneath your head like this and now I can tuck in
Let's get this out so right in here this gap right here, that's subtle, I'm not going like this I'm just
backing my head up so i'm stretching the upper neck here
One of the benefits of this can also be reduction in headaches in the
upper cervical muscles they can get tight, Yeah often they cause tension headaches, you better believe It, now this next one
After you feel like you've been up you may want to turn your Head right to left a little bit
To get it you know loosened up but you're going to use a towel roll so this works out well, Bob says
use a towel roll here and we're gonna continue to use a towel roll and
Go right around the neck okay and then Bob you're gonna come off the edge of the bed a little bit
Oh this way
So i'm gonna even use this to help lower me back
And again this needs to be completely pain-free, if you have any dizziness or
Nausea or anything like that at all, you don't do it. It should just feel like a normal
Gentle stretch and you're not gonna go back real far, it should be comfortable unless It feels real good
But you're just gonna do this maybe five, ten repetitions at the very most
And you can see the towel is moving with my eyes, I'm not going like this
It's going along with me, can you see
You might have to turn your body, there you go, so I'm not going like this
I'm going like this, right so this motion here, so you know
There's a slight little bit of traction so that helps stretch the neck a little bit for the day
You can also just do this throughout the day, you don't
have to do it just in the morning, if you take a nap in the afternoon or in the evening
You can do it as well. Now this next part is an exception, to do this you do have to
Purchase something that costs a little bit about $20 or $30 for a nice foam roll
So this is an option and this is a little softer one
We have these products, always our recommended products are listed below in our Amazon Preferred page
Just go down and click on the link
This one takes a little bit of balance
And this you would not do on your bed, this you would do it on a
carpeted floor and not on a table like Bob is doing, we don't care if Bob falls off, we don't want to fall off though
Okay so do it on a carpeted floor and
The nice one about this is it's very easy and it's comfortable and it feels good and it stretches out the shoulders
For good posture in the shoulders and again that neck hump we're talking about and the mid-back,
You really don't want to just focus on the neck, you have to you know the neck's connected to the shoulders connected
to the thoracic back so we want
to incorporate all this together, and it is working together sometimes, we don't mention it. can You. Can you do some chin tucks on that too Bob? Sure
Again it's real subtle, right so it's right in here
Can you see my little finger moving in there
Squish my finger with the back of his neck
Again you could even put your arms out like this and stretch the chest a little bit, you better believe it
Mr. Ball got wobbly there yep, this works a little bit on balance too
So I can work it this way, this way, stretch it all the way out
You're not going to stay on here more than five minutes. Two to three minutes may be adequate
if you want to go a little bit longer but
probably not more than five minutes. What's nice about this one is the passive nature of it
It's a good one to do
you Know at the beginning of the day or at the end of the day and
Just kinds of sets you up and now I feel really straight and posture perfect here, I like to do this one
When I'm working out, at the end of my workout or kind of in the middle of it too
But I've already moved around a little bit because it'll stretch more and it's just
Boy I can let my mind soar off
and just relax. I'm guessing there's people that won't even be able to get their Head all the way back, if they're really tight
Well that's true, that's a good point, if someone has this forward head posture and it's locked and you've been doing this for a number of years
Why don't you lay down once Bob and
This may happen, if this does happen to you then you will have to do a little modification
Are ya stuck? No I was just grabbing that.
So you might be like this and we don't want you going like this, no
So this is where you're gonna work on those chin tucks to try to get back, they do make a
nice little arch they call it The Pro Roller Arch, that fits on there nicely
As a Start you could do It with a towel couldn't you Brad
Because actually the towel in some ways works well for this because i'm gonna double it up here and as your neck stretches
Then you can take It down further and further, right I'm gonna go to two layers and
You know over hopefully a week or two or whatever it may be
You're gonna get that neck back where it belongs, yeah I wouldn't be surprised Brad if a lot of people can't get back there
Even younger people because it's becoming pretty prominent, this forward head posture, while working on computers, Facebook
All these electronic devices, you can actually monitor your progress by how close you are
You know if you go like this and say I have two inches
Then you want to see if you get it down to one inch and maybe down to a half inch and of course
eventually none at all, as a matter of fact we do have a video that
Specifically shows you how to measure head forward progress
All right next one Brad, should we do some seated ones?
So that's all we're doing in supine and in this seated position now if you work
I guess no matter where, if you're in school, if you're working at a computer workstation
All day long or a longer time or if you're driving you're gonna want to monitor that posture
And get that head up where it belongs so the ears are over the shoulders and not over your thights
Yeah it's a good one
To do driving, right I do this one all the time when i'm driving. It seems to relieve the neck stress
Like you said if you get neck headaches
It really helps and it's a good time to do it
I always monitor, I have a really strong habit now, if i don't feel the back of my head touch that backrest
I know my head's too far forward so I'll be backing in and out and i'll do a little chin tuck as I'm driving and
Actually I really do have a strong habit, I don't even have to think about it anymore
Yeah people look at me a little funny at the stop lights, it's not for that reason, i'm over that, oh?
By the way you want to make sure your seat is upright when you're driving, if it's back
What are you gonna do Brad? You're gonna, if it's back like this, you're gonna bring your head forward
So your seat should be upright, you want the steering wheel fairly close to you
Because if you're reaching for the steering wheel that's gonna bring your head forward too
So get your seat adjusted properly
The next thing if you're working in an office chair you're not gonna be able to do this driving but you can do some lean back and
The hallelujah stretch that Bob does where you can bring your hands back like this and stretch and if you happen to have a
nice little ball, Yeah because what is happening is a lot of the
posture forward head comes from also the mid-back here, if this is rounded out it's gonna move the head forward like this yeah so
If you get a ball about this size and it needs to be soft, this one's a little flat and that works pretty good actually
But you do not want to get a firm solid ball
You need a little cush on it, a little squeeze helps
And you can adjust it up and down and you'll know if you feel like it needs more stretch there
If you can see there I'm just gonna stretch and we can go back, oh
I just got a crack right there, yeah that works really well because you can move it up into the spots
Where you need to, it really was one of our therapists' assistants that came up with this idea, we gotta give him credit
Good ole Mike. You did a good job.
So get these ball, I mean you can get them from any Walmart, Kmart, Target before they go out of business
Not only seated or laying down, we're gonna show you how to convert this into standing
Everyone typically has a wall that's flat
I like to put my sternum right below the belt line up against the wall, that's my starting point
Shoulders back against the wall, get the shoulders back and the head back and you can do a little chin tuck in here and
then if you can go back like this and then it works the scapula motions
as well as the thoracic the back the head, you're getting the whole thing here
The only problem is how long can you stand like this Bob? Well then you can do wall angels
My shoulder hurts today Bob, I was swimming I don't know why I did it, I gotta be careful, This works out great, he gets
in the right posture and then he does wall angels and that really
Lines everything and makes all the muscles working that are supposed to work, right in the upright position
And if you're going for a walk
Someone asked "What can I do to get good posture while I'm walking?" One thing you can do is you can take a towel roll
You know roll it up and put it over your neck good, real quick
If you're gonna have any questions we'll take a few after we're all done here on Facebook
Oh you bet, this works good if it's a sweat day you can wipe your brow or whatever, it looks natural
Yeah you'll look cool
Anyways but you can stretch here like this, you can do the chin tuck and you can do the full extension stretch
If you want to do this, if you don't mind walking out, but stop
Don't walk while you're doing this, you'll bump into someone, and then you can do a chest stretch too
Behind like this or
This is a nice thing about the towel, you can allow it to go longer and then go all the way over like this
So now you're stretching the muscles of the chest which tend to pull you forward, which round out your back, which brings your head forward
Head forward, just a warning about this
Sometimes I'll do this one and I'll find myself doing this for some reason and I don't know why
Remember to correct the chin
Lonnie want to see if anybody has a question? Yeah let's see what's going on Facebook or
Another one I like Brad is just to bring your arms up like this, squeeze the shoulder blades together
But I'm gonna bring it back like this and then I bring my hands back like this
Hit the road Jack, this one helps really good with getting the upper back posture
And if you do that while you're walking, people might think you're hitchhiking and they might slow down and stop
So maybe use your discretion on that
The question is "is it okay when your back cracks?" Yeah there's no problem with that, as long as there's no pain with it,
There's a series of videos of
you know is it okay when my knee cracks my shoulder cracks my hip cracks
In almost all cases it's fine as long as there's no pain along with it
A lot of times it's just releasing a
type of gas between the joints, I believe it's the nitrogen in the cavity, it goes from a liquid to a gas
Or it could be a tendon or ligament
rubbing over a bone
And we've even talked about in some of our videos how to stop it because some people get in the habit of cracking their neck too much
And a good one to do is those extensions so if you feel the need to crack your neck
Is to just work on extending your neck like this, a lot of times it takes away that desire, especially using a towel like this
Really it gives you a little sense of comfort, Yeah all works out good
We would like to say you're welcome very much
I saw that in a movie, it really looked quite elegant, so alright let's finish her up here I gave it a shot
Remember folks we can fix just about anything, except for that broken heart, but we're working on it
We're Working on it. Thanks a lot.