Does your upper back feel locked up and tight and it just feels like it
needs to be released? In this video, I'm going to show you how in a three-part,
step-by-step guide.
Hey everyone, Dr. Rowe here at SpineCare in St. Joseph, MI.
I have a lot of patients that come in with upper back muscle spasms
and pain complaints, and what I'm going to share with you has helped many of
them get more motion in their upper backs and help eliminate muscle spasms,
cramps, and tightness. It's really easy to do, doesn't take much time and can be
done at home. So let's get started and get feeling better right now.
With the first part
of the guide, we're going to focus on loosening up the muscles in the
upper back. We're going to do that through stretching. I'm going to show you
three easy movements. So with the first one, we're going to focus on a muscle
group called the rhomboids. The rhomboids attach the spine to the shoulder blade
region. They're responsible for bringing the shoulders backwards, so retracting
the shoulders. How they get strained is from a lot of forward posture, so think
using cell phones, sitting at the desk, and driving. It's a very common posture today
and it's commonly known as tech neck, nerd neck, or text neck. So with this
stretch what we're going to do is put our arms completely straight (we're
going to keep the arm straight at the elbow) and then lock the knuckles
together. The movement is drawing forward even more, so you can kind of see how my
arms are just going forward, while I keep my hips and everything locked. What this
does is it should feel like the shoulder blades in the back are starting to open
and that muscle that connects from the spine to the shoulder blades is starting
to get stretched a little bit. That would be the rhomboids. I like to hold
this position for about fifteen to thirty seconds. I then come back to my
starting position and then do it again for about three to five times. A good way
to modify this stretch is to do an arc with it and what I mean by that is go
back to this position right here and do that stretch... come back, but the next time
that you do it go just a little bit lower and then do that same stretch
(just like that) and then I just keep going lower with it until I'm all the way
towards the floor. When you do this stretch you want your head to follow
your hands all the way down. Why I like to do that is because it ends up
hitting the upper back muscles just a little bit differently each time that
you go down with it.
So with the second stretch we're going to focus on the
trapezius muscles. That's that muscle that's right up here
and kind of goes right up into the neck. That one is responsible for lifting the
shoulders up. Again, if we're constantly leaning
forward it's going to strain those muscles especially into the upper back
and shoulder region. So this stretch is a two-part process. The first part, just
lift the shoulders up. Shrug them up towards the ears as much as you can.
The second part is bringing the shoulders backwards. This one you're
trying to pinch the shoulder blades in the back. So again, shoulders up and then
we're going to bring them back to try to pinch those shoulder blades in the back.
It's just a really good one to be able to target that trapezius muscle. I like
to hold this one 15 to 30 seconds, relax, and do about three to five times.
The third stretch we're going to sit in a chair. This one is going to target all
the upper back muscles (including the rhomboids and the trapezius muscles).
It's really easy, so let's give this one a try. Sit with good upright posture
just like this, and then put your hands behind your head and then wing the elbows out.
So this would be the starting position, and then from there you're going to lean
forward while bringing the elbows together. Then come back up and
wing those elbows out, while you put the back into extension. You're trying to
get a backwards bend, and that's the movement.
What that's going to do is help open the upper back and reduce a lot of
muscle tightness. Again, hold for about 15 to 30 seconds, relax, and then do it
three to five times.
The second part of this guide, we're going to focus on the muscle
knots and spasms in the upper back. We're going to use a tennis ball to help
self massage those out. I'm going to find the spot that I having a lot of
issues with, like let's say that I have a big muscle knot right here in my upper
back. I'm going to take the tennis ball, I'm going to put it over that spot and
then just slowly lean against the wall until I start to put a good amount of
pressure in there. Don't go to the point where you're causing discomfort, just a
good amount of pressure, and then from there use your body weight to make
circular motions to really just massage that spasm out. Uou can do this
for a couple minutes at a time or until you feel that muscle knot release.
You can also do this lying on the floor. Again, just take the tennis ball, put it over
the spot that has the spasm, and then just roll it out.
For the final part of the guide,
we're going to focus on relaxation of the muscle, and we're going to do that
through heat therapy. So just grab your favorite gel pack, bean bag one that you
throw in the microwave, or a plug-in electric heating pad and just put over
the spot that's tight and tender. Let that sit for about fifteen to twenty
minutes. With heat therapy, you want to limit it to about fifteen to twenty
minutes, otherwise you can actually cause more soreness and stiffness in the area.
So just put it over the spot fifteen, twenty minutes and that's it.
With this step-by-step guide, it should help tackle stubborn muscle knots and spasms
and get you feeling a lot of relief. If you're still having issues, make sure to
make an appointment with your local chiropractor to have it looked at.
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