- All right, one of the most commonly missed problems
with neck pain and headaches is the shoulder blade.
It's actually in the wrong position.
It's depressed or too low, causing problems,
and we're gonna explain it in detail.
- Yeah, we have a test to see if it's a culprit.
- That's right, and you can do it at home.
After some practice.
♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
- All right, so for the test to find out
if indeed the neck and headache pain
is from the shoulder blade, it takes two people.
Bob is going to be the patient.
- The patient. - I'm gonna be
the one doing the test.
So, what Bob is gonna do is sit
and he is, you know, sitting on a stool.
This works out well.
And he needs to sit with reasonably good posture,
and just relax everything as far as
the shoulder blade muscles and everything
in the upper extremities, shoulders
relax. - Will do.
- Yep, so this is called the armpit test,
and you'll see why in just a second.
- But first, check the neck.
- Yep so what Bob is gonna do is
he is gonna, I'm gonna ask him to rotate
to the left, to the right, okay.
And see if that produces any of his neck or headache pain.
- Ow.
- Right there? Okay.
Now I want you to look up towards the ceiling
and then down towards the floor.
- Ow.
- So it hurts when you go back?
- Yep. - And it hurts
when you rotate to the right or to the left?
- To the right.
- Okay, so we're gonna make a mental note of that.
What levels of pain when you do that?
- I'd say a five.
- Okay. - Out of 10.
- 10's the highest.
So five, so it's not extreme pain,
but it's definitely there
and it happens with those motions.
So, that's the pretest.
Now Bob, you wanna turn this way?
Your whole body 90 degrees.
I think it'll look better from -
- This way?
- Yeah, about right there.
Is that okay?
Now, this is why it's called the armpit test,
which is very explanatory.
I need to get my hands underneath and into the armpits.
- Lucky you.
- Yeah, so Bob, the patient needs to relax
and feel comfortable with this.
Otherwise, it's gonna be hard to get a good test.
And I'm going to lift.
So it takes a little strength here,
and I gotta make sure, Bob just relax.
There, now I can feel he's got relaxed shoulder girdles,
his everything is relaxed, okay.
And then I'm gonna hold it up.
Stay relaxed Bob. Take a deep breath.
There you go.
Arms are relaxed like jello.
Now, rotate your head to the right.
- Oh, it feels better.
- Okay, now look up.
Now last time that hurt.
- Again, it feels better.
- So things are feeling better.
- Maybe a two.
- At a two, okay.
Now, I'm gonna explain why this changed a little bit.
So there's musculature holding the shoulder blade up.
The upper trap is one of the big muscles
that comes up and it's attached to the spine.
The levator scapula, I like to call it -
- That's a big culprit.
- Yep.
It's not a big muscle though, but it causes pain.
It attaches to the scapula here.
And it's a narrow muscle but it's,
and it's thin, it's about an inch wide or so.
It actually connects up to the skull.
- Right.
- The skull pan.
But we don't, that's not, that's my slang term.
So anyways, when I pull up, those muscles go on slack.
We do the motion again and that changes.
And it indicates that one of those muscles
or a muscle holding the shoulder blade up
is being stretched and pulled and causing the pain.
'Cause when we put on slack, things get better.
So that's what we need to address.
We're gonna show you three options
to get those muscles to relax and elevate the shoulder.
Get rid of that pain quickly.
- I concur.
- And Bob concurs.
And if that happens, you know we're on the right track.
So let's hold on for a second.
All right one solution is,
particularly if you work at a computer
or workstation - - Sitting a lot.
- in a seated position, and you have
arm rests, what we need to do is this.
The weight of the arm is, sit up.
Oh it's not pulling you that hard.
The weight of the arm is stretching these muscles,
pulling those muscles that create pain.
So we wanna elevate.
So simply have the armrest and if you don't have,
you know some chairs' armrests do elevate,
go up and down, but oftentimes they don't.
Use a pillow like this to support
the weight of the arm, taking the stress
off of these muscles that are
creating the pain, those tight muscles.
And that pain will drop down,
just like when I do the armpit test.
- What if this isn't high enough?
- Ah, if that doesn't work now there's a couple options.
Or if you have like this as a set chair,
armrest, it's not gonna move.
Take a regular pillow, fold it in half,
squeeze it in there, and it actually
works quite nicely. - That really raises up.
- And you know, it can be a temporary thing
until you get a chair that has elevating armrests.
'Cause they're not cheap.
- I took a Pete's Choice and cut it.
- Yeah, you don't have to have a Pete's Choice.
Any kind of foam that when you cut it,
it doesn't fall apart, and then use some duct tape,
right? - Of course.
- You gotta use some duct tape.
Red Green would be proud of us.
So anyways, you cut it there, tape it on there.
And there you go, you have your nice armrest
and you'll be very happy.
Life is good after that.
Make sure you do it on both sides.
Okay, the second approach is a little different.
We're actually gonna stretch some muscles
to allow the shoulder blade to come up
and take the pressure off the neck and the headaches.
And so the lat muscles are one of the big muscles.
And you take either a stick like this,
we got a -
- Booya stick.
- booya stick works well.
- Or a Swiffer.
- A Swiffer, a mop, or any kind of a handle.
Piece of a PVC pipe or wood doweling.
- What you find that works best Brad,
but point the hand out.
- Yep, so he's saying look at the back
of your hand and then grab the stick.
This is a little short for me,
it's not gonna work so well.
I can put this up here.
Oh, look at that, it's gonna work good.
- Hand out,
and twist. - Oh yeah.
And then go up as high as you can.
So you'll feel the stretch right here.
And then the nice, what happens is if you lean
to the right side, if I'm on my right arm,
you'll feel that stretch.
- Do it throughout today.
- Yep, so you're gonna hang out
like that for 15 to 30 seconds.
Relax, breathe, just let things stretch out.
You should feel no sharp pain.
It should feel like a good stretch right in here.
And, do that throughout the day.
Every couple hours.
Give it a stretch for 15 to 30 seconds.
- You'll love it.
- You know, if you got one of these,
you can do a little floor maintenance,
- There you go. - clean the floor,
everyone will be happy.
Okay, we're gonna go on to number three.
Okay now the third approach is we wanna
strengthen the upper traps here.
So they're gonna pull that scapula
up where it needs to be, and you just
stand by the wall about a foot away,
put your hand up on the wall.
And little friction on the wall, push up, up, up, up.
Thinking about getting these muscles to contract.
And then - - It makes the
shoulder blade work.
- Pardon me.
- Make the shoulder blade work.
- Yep, make the shoulder blade work.
We want to get that motion in the shoulder blade.
Some people have tight shoulder blades
because they don't do this type of thing
very often. - Right.
- So you're gonna do 10 of those, five to 10.
- Yep, absolutely.
- If you're doing it right, you'll feel this muscle
up here fatigue, maybe burn a little bit.
And this is something you can do two
or three times per day, even it out.
There you go.
Good.
Now most of you aren't gonna be as tall as Bob.
He's dang near putting a hole
in the ceiling above there, but,
so it should work out. - Doing my best.
- All right, there you go.
Those are the three options you can do.
All three of them should be, you may just find out
if you put rests under your armrests
on your computer chair, life is gonna be good,
but you should do the other ones as well.
Bob, do you have anything else to say about this situation?
- Well, I use it myself so it worked.
- That's right.
Yeah, when it works on you, you're a believer.
And they're simple, you know?
Things you can do at home, at work.
Very good, I'm -
- Good luck.
- Yeah.
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