HI this is Dr David Warwick of Warwick Chiropractic and we are going to have a part 1, 2 and 3
series of neck pain.
The most important exercises that you can do.
There is many different reasons of why neck pain occurs but the big question is more importantly
things to do to self management, certain strategies so we are going to break it down into at least
4 different type of categories.
One is posture the other one is stretching, strengthening and coordination.
So today we are going to talk about posture, this one is a big culprit and one that as
chiropractors we are constantly looking at from the moment we meet you to the moment
you leave the office or room.
The big thing we see are the big postural disadvantage that we see is there is forward
head carriage or sometimes called forward head posture.
The estimated 60-90% of the population have it.
So look around when you are at the bus stop, driving, people looking on their phones, standing
somewhere in the grocery store and this forward head posture strongly decreases many different
things such as your respiration muscles, our ability to breathe.
Alter functions of the eyes, ear functions, the ability to hear to see.
It increases blood pressure, this many times leads to types of arthritis, wearing away
of the disc, pinching the nerves.
Classic appearance or what we see is when the head moves forward and the shoulders move
forward and the upper back.
This is a hyper lordosis or hyper kyphosis and this is a statistic you may not be aware
of, for every inch forward that the head moves in a forward position, forward posture it
is an additional 10 lbs of pressure to hold up the head so it puts additional strain and
stress on the muscles forward and backward.
So here is some things or exercises that you can do to make change in your posture especially
throughout the day.
First of all number one you want to tighten your abdominal area.
It doesn't have to be hard or difficult but just by simply bracing the abdominal area
and contracting it.
Second thing that you can do is obviously lifting your chest up.
Don't just try to tuck your chin backward but bring the chest up.
Automatically when you raise your chest up your shoulders go back.
It makes you more aware of that posture.
After you have done that the third thing that you can do is perform a chin retraction.
I have gone through this and many other types of videos so contract some of the abdominal
area.
I have a slight contraction of mine right now.
Lift your shoulder or chest up, shoulders automatically go back and the next thing to
do is just do a slight chin tuck, just like this.
It is a retraction, so just gently slide it back.
You can do this 8 or 10 times in a give hour to make that retraining.
Do it once an hour, set your computer or set your clock on your phone to do that so once
again I am going to contract just gently on to the abdominal area, chest up shoulders
back slightly and retract.
So it is almost like your head is on a, it is parallel to the ground or floor so don't
tuck it down.
Have the head up ward and just glide and slide.
It is a retraction, moving it backward.
You should almost if you look in the mirror you get like this double or triple chin you
are doing it correctly.
If you do this through out the day, do this 8 or 10 times in a given hour that you are
looking at you did 100 times and this is a great way to reprogram or motor program your
nervous system so this will help with a lot of the complications that you may have.
Difficulty breathing, tension type headaches amongst the others that I suggested so stay
tuned over the next period of time here, over the next few weeks.
I will be helping you understand more about focusing on stretching, strengthening and
coordination of the neck area.
I am Dr David Warwick your local Lacey Olympia Chiropractor.
You can visit my website at Drdavidwarwick.com.
You can ask a question, you can visit my website and under there you can request the back and
neck pain relief book that I have as well and I'll answer any questions that you have
by calling 360-951-4504.
I hope this information was really helpful to you, thank you for watching and I look forward to seeing you soon. Thank you.