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 gonna talk about how to restore your bad
neck curve with a simple towel stretch
And we're also going to talk about why you want to restore it and why you get that curve possibly
And what can influence it just from day to day work and activity and stresses but
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What are we doing with this thing? I think it's always a wonderful demonstration of the stresses on your neck
The simple activities such as working at the computer, driving your car, watching a movie at your couch
Yeah, cuz a bowling ball weighs about well some of them they I think they run it from about 10 pounds to 16 pounds
And your head is about
10 pounds
Yeah, you got all that brain that you have in there. I don't know if it's brains but something's in there
So anyway that ball on top of your spine
Puts a lot of stress on you, you get that massive intelligence and yeah
There's that weight there and something has to hold it up and it's the spine and then the neck muscles around it
Let's say we are sitting
with your cell phone
Or at a computer and your head is going
forward like this and that weight of your head takes a fair amount of energy to support, so i'm going to go ahead like this, so the
Formula is basically every inch you go forward that's another 10 pounds of stress on your neck
It doesn't mean your head is gaining 10 pounds, but the physics of it the leverage of your head being
For example that's the whole deal with this, Bob is it easy to hold it here? Okay, so right now. Yeah
It's lined up. You know this would be my ears are right over my shoulders
They're looking at the profile, if I start going head forward, now look at this Brad
I can even hold this with one hand, the muscles don't have to work that hard
Start going forward, all right now
There's a little bit of stress on my wrist and you know imagine this stress for hours, because this is
what people do, so if I'm looking at my cell phone I've got about the same angle as this
Take this hand off of there Bob.
Yeah, see it's much heavier just because of the angle and the physics of it
And so let's say you're way forward like this
You know and these are people I see going down like this looking at their cell phone
Now I mean my hands are fatiguing so this is always a great demonstration
And we want to take that frown and turn it upside down right there you go
It's for that cute, yeah
Yeah, all right, so let's get rid of this, so if we look at the neck itself and the head would be here
Here's our spine
That bad neck curve that we have in the title of this is this putting an awful lot of stress on
The spine itself and it's not so much the vertebra that causes a problem
It's the discs between the vertebra and it can pinch the nerves that come out, which eventually into the shoulder and into the arm
So you get pain in the neck and it refers down to the arm, or all the way into the hand
Also with this it's not just a spine
But there are muscles particularly the scalene muscles that are right in here and they help hold your head up
When you go forward they tighten up. They're part of the muscles that are holding your head from flopping down like this and
They can actually pinch the artery the vein and the nerve
Complex, and not only irritate the nerve but can restrict the blood flow going down into the arm
And that's why you start getting those sensations into your arm and sometimes they're very strange sensations
They might be like numbness and tingling and sometimes you do get different
Sensitivity to temperatures, exactly so and now there's more Bob, but wait
There's more, I always like saying that, but wait there's more
But TMJ problems with the jaw with your head forward like
And that's very easy to relate to Brad because just try to swallow with your head like this,
And now try to swallow with your head lined up correctly
And you'll find out that there's a great difference, and if you eat like that with your head forward
You are eventually could develop you know
Problems with your jaw right that TMJ issues. It's not lined up. The other thing
I'd like to bring up Brad is that when your head is like this now this part is forward this part is
extended and this is where you get tension in here, right up in that upper
Cervical area and that results in the headaches now, so if you're getting headaches that feel like they're coming from your neck
And they're going up, a lot of times
They're one-sided
They're going up one side of the head and maybe even into the eye that is the greater occipital nerve you're putting pressure on
So that's another reason why a bad neck curve can result in pain
So how would I take care of this it can be very simple you can you know grab a towel
Just go to the bathroom grab a towel in the kitchen wherever
You also can use this stretch out strap
I want to get a chair because this is best done in a chair, I agree
Now I'm going to use a stool here
I should've probably been prepared. I don't see our stretch out strap right off the hand, it's right down there Bob
It's on our shelf displayed to everyone on the floor, in front Bob
Wow
Have a seat Bob
Okay, am I using this or am I using a towel? We should use a towel because we said a towel
Before you get to the towel you do a very simple little stretch warm up, our chin tucks, always the chin tucks
While you're getting your towel prepared you can do a few chin tucks, the other thing when you're doing the chin tucks you
already want to make sure you in good posture. I don't want you going down here,
I mean your shoulders got to be up they're lined up over the hips your ears are lined up with the shoulders
Okay, we got the towel
Now there's two ways you can use this towel Bob
You show them your way, and I'll show my way, mine I use the edge of the towel, that's called the selvage
Yeah, we usually have someone correct us in the comments
And I go like this and I actually
make a cool cape
Use that edge right underneath my ears or I can move up and down the spine as needed
With some people it might be more comfortable
I think I'll do the corners
And I roll it around like this and you get a little more padding this way
Because sometimes we're getting real specific and with the solfege it's too aggressive, and you'll know
But here, and it does work best to have a chair that you can lean against like Bob has, yeah exactly
You can do it without it, but it's more comfortable with. in other words
You can do it standing or sitting but it is more comfortable sitting
relax your back, go ahead Bob,
On this one the difference is I know I got it like right below my ears
As you see lined up here, and I got the edge there
I'm gonna actually when I bring my neck back my hands go up with it,
So I'm a lot of times we say we even make little bunny ears
We call it, like this Brad, and then we follow the bunny ears, or the bunny ears follow you
I never say that to my patients but Bob does, I got a different one
I'm a lot more fun apparently, okay Brad don't you show your direction?
So with this a lot of times, I'll have people just start here
And they go back like this and correct that curve and go back and relax
And this is for people that, now you're pulling down, yeah
I'm pulling gently and you can also go up with this as well and
Pulling up gently, so I'm pulling up towards the ceiling right now
And whether you're doing either one this should feel like a good stretch on your neck
This is not no pain no gain. This is you want to actually normally less pain
If it still hurts when you're doing this you might have to make adjustments like if you're doing this one
You might try a little lower and go down a little bit lower and give it a try
My neck just cracked there a little bit
A little cavitation for Christmas. Oh yes, I got my Christmas tie on, it is a few days before Christmas
Yeah, they're singers, maybe we should sing Bob
Alright anything else Brad you want to show
No well, if you do happen to have the strap
a couple things nice about the strap is it has the loops and
that way if you have arthritic hands, and you have a hard time grasping that towel
you can get your hands in here and get your thumb in there, or you can grab it like this and
here, I'm gonna go down
And every six inches there's a loop so it makes it very versatile and there you can see I can start low
That actually works out good because there's a lot of people that don't like
the pain at c7
So this is actually a great way to really kind of get focus on that area where you can't really with a towel
and you wouldn't do it with a shirt and tie on like this, you got to have a t-shirt on where you can get, because
This canvas tech material actually grips on your skin and your body
Wow that's cool Brad. I didn't realize that, well we learn something new every day
Yeah, go ahead, one thing that I found out by starting to use the stretch out strap
Which you always talked about if you have arthritic hands and stuff
But even when I'm stretching my hamstrings. I put my hands in that loop and it's just relaxing
I'm not pulling, right
I'm laying there and kind of letting gravity do its thing and that's the key to stretching
Learning how to relax and breathe and let your body stretch
Don't force it, so this is a new discovery Brad
because it's really hard to get down to that lower spine. Yeah, right here, Wow that is cool
Now you can see that, it kind of grips in there, you better believe it's gripping, Wow
So that's like if you're getting kind of knots in that upper area there, get to the upper thoracics a little bit
Wonderful. Okay. Well once again we discovered
I'm thinking we're getting close to that one big discovery we're working on, we can fix just about anything
Except for a broken heart, there you go is it right in here Bob? We work hard every day to do it
I don't know. It's over here somewhere. Thanks for watching
You