Hi, and welcome to this week's exercise routine. I'm Michelle, and today I'm going to be guiding
you through some exercises to help you release tension through your neck and through your
shoulders. So we're going to be doing most of this routine today sitting and then you
might like to join me on the ground for some deep breathing exercises at the end of this session.
So, we're going to start now, think about your posture, taking your shoulders away from your
ears, allowing your shoulders to relax down. Let's take a nice deep breath in,
into the belly and at the air fall away. And again, one more deep breath,
breathing into the belly and go just hit the air softly fall away. So let's start with some slow,
steady shoulder rolls. Let's breathe in, bring the shoulders up towards your ears,
and breathe out, and take the shoulders right back, down and around. And again,
breathing in, shoulders for drink big circles with the shoulders, and back, down and around,
open up. And once more, breathing in, and breathing out, and down, and around.
Alright, keep tall, lengthening through the crown of your head. Nice, tall spine and bring the hands
up just behind the ears so just the back of the head. If that's too hard for you, at the moment,
you've got sore shoulders, you can just bring their hands to the shoulders. But otherwise
hands behind the head. And we're going to breathe in and take the elbows back. So really expand and
open through the chest, breathing in and breathe out, and bring the elbows close together. I'll
do that again from sight on. Breathing in and breathe out. And you can see I'm keeping my
gaze for somewhat extending my neck back. Want to keep it in a comfortable position. Breathing in,
opening up through the chest to the front of the shoulders and breathe out. This time
bring the elbows together and slump right down and bring the elbows down towards your
navel towards your belly button. One less time breathing in really open up, lift up and breathe
out. Elbows together and tuck right back down to extend that stretch into your upper neck,
middle back, in the back of the shoulders and now coming back up. And let's bring the arms down.
Alright, just moving into a couple of stretches now for our shoulders. Let's take your right
arm up take hold of just above the elbow there. Trying to get the arm straight so nobody stays
straight with this exercise. We are in an across and you should feel that stretch through the back
of your shoulder there as a stretch. So again, breathing out with a stretch and relaxing that
shoulder away from your ear. So as we do this exercise, we're trying to hunched up a little
bit like that trying to keep your shoulder away from your ear and feel that stretch through the
back of the shoulder your rotator cuff muscles and error. A common culprit our back and let's
take that down. Now, same hand comes down and around the outside of that thigh. So reach down
around the outside that five you can. And now pull back as if you're lifting the thigh but the
foot isn't coming off the ground. And you'll feel that a really great stretch through the
shoulder by between your shoulder blade and your spine. Drawing back and let's slowly release.
Alright, we're going to do the same thing another side again, sitting tall. Check your
other arm out. So it's left hand this time isn't it, bringing it across. Again shoulder stays away
from the ear taking hold of above the elbow and kick the arm straight and bring it in towards
your body. And again, the stretches through the back of the shoulder. If you feel sensations down
through the arm here, it might be that you have a problem through shoulder through rotator cuff
that just keep the stretch within a comfortable range not pushing through any discomfort with any
of these stretches. And once again, relaxing you're breathing and now as you breathe out,
like have any tension, and it's slowly released there, same hand, same side,
again around the outside of that five are taking it around and now draw back through the shoulder.
and again this stretches through the shoulder blades so it just comes out on so you can see
where I'm pointing to through that area there. So as if you're lifting the thigh off the ground,
but it doesn't want to move. Keep the head down arm. And sometimes you'll feel a stretch to the
side of the neck with that stretch, too. It's a beautiful stretch for the upper back. And let's
release and bring the arms down. Bring the things together, big breath in. And with that enrolled
food, really stretching between the shoulder blades there and definitely warming up here. I
don't know how you're going at home, breathing in. And take it out, and down, and come down.
Now let's move into our dedicated neck stretches. Again, think about your posture,
take your shoulders away from your ears, and lift through the crown of your head string up towards
the ceiling. Let's start by taking the chin down to the chest, breathing in and breathe out. Just
slowly lower the chin down to the chest until you feel the stretch for the back of the neck
and come back up. And we're not hyperextending we're not looking up to the ceiling,
we want to get a sore neck, just opening up the joints of the neck. So taking it again,
breathing in and breathing it out, come down, and come back up. And one more time breathing in,
stay tall through the chest. Breathe out and down. And bring the head back up. Now look over
your left shoulder. Stay tall looking around as far as you can. Try and close the mouth.
And just push the jaw slightly for that position. And rotate back to center. Now the other sides of
your right shoulder turn as far as you can. This rotation movement is really important.
For our day to day functioning, coming back to center, you'll know that if you've had a stiff
neck and you can't turn your head around again. Stick around and one more time taking it around.
Now lowering your chin down and draw an arc with your chin as if your chin is touching your chest,
right around and through an arm, and let's take it down again. Try to get your chin to
touch your chest right down, through and up, and bring the head back to neutral.
How are we going at home. I hope that's helping you start to relax through neck and shoulders.
Bring your arms down. I'd like you to turn around now, turn your nose around, and you're taking it
down to your right thigh. So you're looking down in the middle of your right thigh. But keep your
left shoulder down so this shoulder stays down. You can hold on to underneath the chair with that
left hand to fix that shoulder as you guide that nose down and the stretches through the side and
the back of the neck here and you can bring the right hand up over the top if you like to
just fingertip pressure not to firm, and you can just add a gentle over press the if you like to
with the nose down. Just towards the thigh there. Just getting a lovely stretch in through the back
of the shoulder and the left side of your neck and let's come back up. Take the hand down and
send the other side. So we're turning around, left side this time, down just slightly looking at the
middle of your thigh. Giving the right shoulder down again, you might hold underneath the chair
with your right hand is to fix that shoulder down or the hand comes up and take the nose down.
And again, relaxing the breath with the stretch. Release gently, hand down.
All right, one last stretch here. Let's take the left ear to the left shoulder taking it
across and down. If that causes you discomfort on that same side, just bring the nose to the thigh
instead. So you're aiming for a stretch down through the right side of the neck. And again,
keeping that shoulder down. Again, I've got my hand underneath my chair here, and coming back up,
breathing in and breathing out. Same thing to the side. Keep your nose facing forward resist that
temptation to roll around. Edging, you're looking in the mirror straight ahead and coming back up.
Alright, almost shoulder circle forward, up, back and down and it's breathing. Lift up. Now
slowly breathe out and let go through the neck and the shoulders. Great. Let's do that again.
Breathing in. Breathe out and relax down and not one breathing in and breathe out and relax the
shoulders away from your ears. Now we're going to move down to the ground for our last couple
of stretches through our neck and shoulders, and some relaxed, deep breathing ordinated the towel.
So coming into lying down, now all you need is your hand towel. Let's take it down onto
the ground. And we're going to lie down with the feet flat, lying down flat key. Now if you need
something to support a pillow didn't need to support your head and neck, that's absolutely
fine. I'd like you to take your towel, and we're going to take our hands out about shoulder width
apart here so you can they work shoulder width apart there, and we're going to breathe in here
and as you breathe out, bring the arms right back in over as far as you can comfortably breathe out.
Doesn't matter. If you can't reach the ground, that's fine. Breathe in, come back up. And this
is a lovely exercise for improving the range of movement through your shoulder if your shoulders
tend to be stiff, breathing out, and bringing it right back either try and take a little bit
further each time if you can. And coming back up and we've got one more breathing in and breathing
out. Right back over and bring the arms back up. And take the towel down by your side.
Now bring your elbows and your palms together in this position. So just about at right angles
they're breathing in and breathing out, bring the elbows wide, as wide as you can, if you
can get down to the ground that's fantastic. So the back of the elbows down to the ground,
can you get the back of your hands and wrists down to the ground. Keep the inward curve in your lower
back. And let's bring it back up again, breathing in and breathing out. So this is a wonderful front
of shoulder stretch and posture stretch that you can do this will help your neck and your upper
back as well. By helping you to stand tall, we're doing one more of these breathing in and breathing
out. Take it back and down open up there. Now bring your knees and your feet together,
and I'd like you to roll to one side. Try and keep both shoulders on the ground during this
role. Just keep it comfortable for your lower back so you get a lovely back rotation at the
same time as opening up through your chest and it's come back to center. Breathing in other
side. Breathing out just roll slowly keeping it comfortable. I hope you're enjoying that at home.
And let's go again breathing in, and breathing out, and down. And once more breathing in,
and breathing out, and down, and coming back into our neutral position. If you can keep your arms
they're great if they need to come down by your sides, then rather than back down. Let's just
finish up here with some pelvic tilt. So gently flattening the arch of the law back into the mat.
And then rolling the pelvis back through. And again, rolling back, gently pressing the law
back down into the mat and back through and that should feel really nice particularly for those of
you that have sway backs or lodging weaker and your lower back. Press it down and back. Great.
Bring the fingers together. Reach up towards the ceiling. Bring the shoulders off the ground. Big
press up. Breathe out, push it away. And down. Now press the palms up. Press away and release
arms up overhead if you can take them out back to the ground. That's great. Lengthen
out. Fingertips to toes again, stretching right out deep breath in, stretch right out and allow
you just to release back down by your sides in a comfortable position in might like to
close your eyes down now. And let's just take a moment here to do a couple of nice
deep breaths. These are diaphragmatic breaths. Lovely way of taking tension out of your body,
slowing the nervous system down. So notice your breath and think about breathing into the upper
belly as you breathing slow and deep. Fill up your lungs. Make your hand rise with your breath
and now that the air just softly fall away and once more breathing into a play up the base of
your lungs ribcage expand wide belly moves forward and as you breathe out,
just allow any remaining tension to leave your body softening down with your out breath.
Thanks so much for stopping by today. I really hope that helps you at home or at least some
neck and shoulder attention. I'll see you next time. Bye for now.