♪ Bob and Brad, ♪
the two most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- Howdy 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, we're going to show you
a series of stretches for the neck.
We already did the upper neck,
but this is for the remainder of the neck.
And we're going to have you try these different exercises
separately and in order. So you start with the first one.
If that helps keep doing it,
if it gets to a point where you kind of hit a plateau,
start the next one.
- None of them should create any sharp pain
or radiating pain down in the arms
or the shoulders. If that happens,
just go to the next one right away.
- Yeah. We're looking to try to centralize the pain.
So let's say the pain is going down your shoulder.
You want the pain to go back up into the neck.
- Right?
- And out of the shoulder.
And that means you're doing the right thing.
- And that's called a referral pain.
The pain starts at the neck,
but it refers is very commonly into the shoulder blade area
or into the shoulder. And that's not unusual.
- Now these stretches are designed
to be done multiple times a day.
So you could do it like six to eight times a day
if you are up to it.
- Right? And once you find the ones
that feel good and give you progress,
they don't take long.
You can do them in 30 seconds up to a minute,
depending on what you know, which one it is.
- Now, this could be for a tight neck.
Let's say we found out in our last video,
because we're going to do a video on
how to tell if your neck is tight.
- Ah, yeah.
- You find out your neck is tight.
This might be for that reason, or if you are having pain.
- Yep.
- So let's start with the first one,
we already showed this one Brad,
but it's always good to show again.
- Sure.
- This is the chin tuck.
Do you want %to show that in the seated position?
- I'm not sure if I remember right Bob,
it seems like we've talked about the chin tucks in the
last 10 years. - A few thousand times, so.
- All right.
So with the chin tuck, make sure, you know,
it's best to do on a firm chair, not in a slouchy chair.
So here we got a firm upright chair,
scoot your bottom back.
- Really good being, good posture.
- Shoulders back.
And so this is a problem that is just absolutely widespread
throughout our societies. - Yeah.
- Head forward because of the cell phone,
computers, everything we do promotes this.
- We need to reverse
- Yep, you're looking down. I mean, oh Brad,
when I go for a run in the morning.
- Yeah.
- There's kids at this bus stop.
and they're like this on their phones.
Everyone of them.
- I suggest you go up to them and grab their shoulders,
straighten them up, pull their head back and say,
there you go.
- And there, well I will be on a poster.
- Yeah, so I'm going to do these chin tucks again.
Good posture.
- He's not going up,
he's not bending up and down.
- Not this, not this. - He's going straight back.
- And there you go.
You can add a little overpressure with your fingers or the
crux of your palm there gentle, not aggressive,
just a little get this straight.
- All steps feel good, hurt so good.
- Remember to reeve, breathe and relax as you do these.
And you're going to find some real nice stretching.
Again, no sharp pain.
You could have something unusual going on.
If that's the case, then you stop.
- The next one we're going to work on is we're trying to
regain some of the motion going back
and that's neck extension.
Now, Brad had found from treating thousands of patients that
almost everyone needs to start with either
a belt or a towel. - Right?
- Do you concur Brad? - I concur Bob.
- All right.
- But what are we going to do with a belt or a towel?
- Well, which one do you want to start with?
- It's not going to be punitive, is it?
No, yeah, I would.
I would probably start with a towel.
- Sure. - Just because it's softer.
And if you do have a sore or tight neck,
it seems like people relax better with it.
- Right.
- To have a better stretch initially.
it wants to stretch gets going,
go to the, the belt.
- There's different ways to doing this.
But we have found probably
the best way is just to pull down.
- Yeah.
- Brad's, you see what he's doing there?
- And get it down low on your neck.
- Right. - Little chin tuck start,
and then just gently go back until you feel, you know.
- I want to point out something, Brad.
This is where it's good to have a chair that hits you right
about mid back here.
Because not only are you getting some movement
in the upper neck or the neck,
you're also getting a little movement in the upper back.
- Right.
- So you're actually going right
over the edge of the chair.
- Yes, so we combine neck motion
with the thoracic back extension.
- This will affect your neck, the upper back.
And we'll talk about that in some other videos.
But right now, this suffice to say that.
- Yeah. - It helps to do that.
So you can also do it with a belt.
We have found this works really well later on.
It's better to get a little more specific
to levels of the neck then
like let's say you wanna,
you try it a little bit higher.
It hits that one level better then.
- And I always have people try it here, go down.
And you'll find a one level as almost all my patients say,
oh yeah, that's better.
And you can see like a better range of motion with less
pain or no pain with that support.
You can stretch that and not too thick a wide belt.
- Right. - You don't want a wide belt,
this is as wide as I'd wanna go.
That's about an inch. - Not a belt from the 70s,
wasn't it? Where those big wide.
- Big yeah, the buckles, - Belts.
- Hip hugger pants,
I guess maybe they're coming back to the style.
- Yeah. - I don't know.
Ooh. - So now we're going to
add a little twist to this.
- Ooh.
- It's going to be a twist actually.
Let's say you kind of get stuck.
Your neck has been going so far for a couple of days or a
couple of weeks now still hurts.
Still only goes so far.
If you want to gain some motion now,
you can actually gonna do neck extension
and then you could do slight rotations.
Like you're saying no,
just moving that nose back and forth a little bit.
Brad's going to show it there.
And you might feel a little bit of grinding
- Yeah. - Like it's a mobilization.
- and this is when it,
I'll have people it's easy to just grab back here
and support. - And go like that.
- And you can add a little movement with the hands.
- Yep, and while you're rotating,
you're trying to go back further.
You're trying to bring the neck back further.
- Don't force it though it should not hurt.
It should feel like a good motion.
- Dang yeah.
Always watch the pain.
We want the pain under control or feeling better.
- And typically I always would say not more than 10 times.
- Yeah, no no no no no. - You don't want to keep
going after.
- Just a couple.
- Come back up and see how it feels.
And if it feels good, come back after an hour.
- All right. Let's say now you got
fairly good neck extension still having some pain.
This is the one that works for me, Brad.
- Okay. - So I do a chin tuck which
and then I side bend towards the painful side.
For me, that's the right side.
So I chin tuck, right side,
chin ruck right side. - So it's like bringing
your ear to your shoulder. - Into the shoulder.
- Not shoulder to the ear. - Right?
You don't lift it up.
Chin tuck side. This really makes a big difference to me.
And it's because I tend to keep my head like this all day
long. So it need to get that motion back.
- Right? - Go, go back.
And that's what a lot of stretchiness is just bouncing your
body out.
- So you can also obviously go to the left side
if you have pain, - Right?
Listen to your body, relax while you do this.
- All right. - No sharp pain.
- The final one,
if none of those work or you're stuck go ahead
and you're actually going to use
your hands or you can actually just start by trying it
without anything it all.
But you're going to actually chin tuck
and rotate to the painful side.
So again, let's say it's my right side.
I'ma chin tuck and I'ma rotate towards that side,
chin tuck, rotate toward the side.
Now, if I want to add a little overpressure,
I can just take my hand like this Brad.
- Okay. - Hand to the back of the head
hand on the chin, chin tuck,
and get a little bit of pressure here.
A little bit of pressure here.
- Do not get this confused with that.
- Yeah, this is (indistinct).
- Cracking that,
not that you could actually do this.
- Slow. - With your fingers tips.
- Real slow and gentle.
- Gentle. - Application
of pressure. - Yeah, absolutely.
- If you twist your head off, it's not our fault.
We can warn you.
Same thing you can do it to the left.
Chin tuck turn to the left,
using your hand and on your chin and on your upper head
to give a little overpressure.
- Now, one thing, we can mention.
And I think you'll agree with this, Bob,
if you go to the right and it hurts
and going to the left feels better.
Don't go to the right.
Go to the left 10 times and then go back to the right.
And that'll oftentimes loosen up the painful side.
- Or maybe in a couple days.
- Right. - You come back to it
- Yeah, you take your time with these things,
you don't,
you're not going after it and getting it just like,
sometimes it works.
- [Bob] Take what your body will give to you.
- [Brad] Right, relax, enjoy it.
- [Bob] All right, that's the next stretches.
I hope you have some good luck with them.
- Enjoy.
(outro music begins)