Disclaimer Alert! Hey everybody is Doctor Jo and "Yawn-I-corn"
Remy, and today I'm going to show you stretches and exercises
for cervical spondylosis.
So let's get started. So we're going to start with just a
little bit of a warm up to loosen up the neck muscles. So
let's just start with some cervical rotation, which is just
kind of turning the head side to side. This is just to get those
muscles loosened up as we go into the big stretches and the
exercises. With this rotation, you don't necessarily have to
pause and hold it. But if you want to do a little pause to get
that extra stretch, you can. Now I'm turning a lot with my neck
rotating here. If you have some pain, or some tightness or
stiffness, without spondylosis, you might only be able to start
off going, you know, this kind of rotation not quite as far and
that's fine. You just want to go into your comfort zone. You want
to feel a little bit of tension, a little bit of pressure, but
you don't want it to be super painful. Then you're just going
to go into a cervical side bend. And so this time, you're just
going side been side to side. So it's taking the ear towards the
shoulder, not bringing the shoulder up. So try and make
sure your shoulders are nice and relaxed. And you're just doing
that cervical side bend. Again, if you want to do a little
pause, you can but this is more just kind of getting the muscles
loosened up and ready to go. So it doesn't have to be a certain
amount. But if you like to count, you can maybe do five or
10 on each side, or you can do it for time. So you know, maybe
20 seconds, just going back and forth. Then we're gonna go into
some shoulder circles. And so shoulder circles, those neck
muscles up here, go down into the shoulder as well. So doing
some Shoulder Circles is really nice, again, to really get those
muscles warmed up and moved and stretched out a little bit. So
circles just kind of going up and over like this. So you're
really getting that movement at your shoulders, I'm coming up,
and I'm really squeezing those shoulder blades as I go back and
then coming down. So with this one, you can do five or 10 one
way, and then reverse it and go the other way or clockwise
counterclockwise. But really trying to get that big
exaggerated movement at your shoulders. And again, it
shouldn't be painful. So you know, I'm making big movements,
sometimes, going back this way is a little bit easier for me
than going forward this way. But if you need to make some smaller
circles, where you're just kind of going like this, again,
making sure that it's not painful, and then you can
progress as you go. And then hopefully, you'll get more
loosened up each time you do it. And then you'll be able to get
bigger movements later on or a week or two later after that. So
then we're gonna go into some of my favorites, which are chin
tucks. And if you've seen any of my neck videos or my shoulder
videos, or my posture videos, I love chin tucks. For me, the
chin tucks are not tucking down, but you're actually tucking it
back. So you're really kind of resetting those neck muscles. A
lot of times with spondylosis, if your muscles are weak, you
kind of start going forward, and then that causes even more pain
and it causes your posture not to be good. So it's kind of
which one came first the bad posture or bad posture after you
have some of that degeneration in there. So with the chin tuck,
if you've seen this before, with me, I like to use my finger as a
target. You don't have to. But if you haven't done these
before, a lot of times, it's nice because it kind of helps
you visualize what's going on. So if I'm just here, I want to
keep my chin kind of in a neutral position. So it's not
tucked in, it's not going up. Kind of staying in this plane
here. I'm just going to place my finger on my chin, leave my
finger in the same spot, and then tuck back almost like I'm
just trying to bring my head back behind me. Hold this for
about three to five seconds, and then relax. And a lot of times,
then there will be some space in between. I know that my finger
was moving a little bit because I was talking as I was going,
but that just means that you're resetting those muscles. Same
thing with the chin tucks. When you're going back, I have a lot
of movement. I do chin tucks every day just because I do have
some neck issues from injuries in the past. And so if you're
doing a chin tuck, and you just start off with this, that's
fine, because the chin tucks shouldn't hurt. They shouldn't
cause dizziness or sharp pain or anything like that. So start off
with it just a little bit. And then again, the more you do them
over time, you should be able to get definitely more movement in
there. So again, just taking that chin, bringing it back,
keep that neck nice and long. So you're sitting up tall, not
slouching down, and doing this. You know you want to get in that
nice good position and bring it back and again, holding it for
about three to five seconds doing that several times. So
then we're gonna go into some full stretches where you're
holding it for 30 seconds. A lot of the muscles around the neck
again, go into the shoulder. So they might technically be
shoulder stretches, but they're really neck stretches or vice
versa. They might be neck stretches but they help the
shoulders out as well. So we're gonna go into an upper trap
stretch. And so that's that big kind of triangle muscle in the
back of our neck and our upper back and that's the upper part
of it. So I like to just sit on my hand of the side that I'm
going to stretch. And this just helps keep that shoulder down to
get a better stretch. Some people like to put it behind
their back. You can also just rest it down, or you can kind of
push it downwards a little bit, but I like just kind of sitting
on it so I can relax. But I'm keeping that shoulder down for
that better stretch. Then you're gonna take the other hand, bring
it up over your head, where your fingers are kind of touching
your ear on that other side, and then just gently pull away from
the side, that your hand that you're sitting on. So just
gently pulling, getting that nice stretch. You should feel
kind of all the way up into the top of your neck area, down even
into your shoulder down where the bone is here on that AC
joint. And then just holding that stretch for 30 seconds.
Really trying to keep your head in that nice plane. Some
stretches you can add in a turn this way or turn up, you'll get
some of the other muscles in there. But starting off, I just
like for the upper trap this this hold here, holding it for
30 seconds. Switch sides, even if one side is a little more
painful than the other. Doing both sides is always good to
getting that nice full stretch in there holding that for 30
seconds. And then doing that three times on each side. If
you'd like to follow along in a real time video where I'm doing
the full 30 seconds on each side, you can check out that
link up there with all of my real time videos. So then the
next one is just going to be a levator scapulae stretch. And
again, this is one of my favorite because that Levator
scap muscle is one that likes to cause a lot of problems. It
comes all the way up in that cervical spine and goes down and
attaches to the scapula or the shoulder blade, and it lifts up
or elevates that scapula. So it's called the levator
scapulae. And so this one is a lot of times if we hold stress,
or we have those really tight muscles, we'll kind of crunch up
like that. And then we're overworking and tightening that
muscle. So again, there's a couple different ways you can do
it. The way that I always learned how to do it is the side
that you want to stretch, you're going to kind of bring your
elbow up towards the ceiling as much as you comfortably can. And
again, that pushes that shoulder blade down just to give you a
better stretch. Now, if you have a lot of pain or a lot of
shoulder tightness, this might not be comfortable for you to
do. So you can still put it you can put it behind your back or
you can sit on it. This is just the way I learned how to do it.
And I feel like I get a good stretch, because I'm really
keeping that shoulder blade down. Then you take your
opposite hand, and I kind of say put it on almost like you'd put
a helmet on. So it's up and over. It's not to the side, like
the upper traps stretch, but it's up and over, kind of
holding the back of your head. And then you're going to turn
your head to about a 45 degree angle or where you're looking
towards the opposite knee. And then just pull down kind of
almost like you're tucking in your nose to that armpit there
and getting that nice stretch, and hold that stretch for 30
seconds. So I'm really feeling that coming all the way up
almost to the base of the skull there.
And then all the way down to my shoulder blade or that scapula.
And then again, holding that for 30 seconds. I like to alternate
sides, you don't have to. You can do all of them on one side
and then switch. But I like just giving one side a little bit of
a break and alternating. And then getting that nice stretch
in there, holding that for 30 seconds. And then we're just
going to finish up with some exercises. So we're just going
to go into a shoulder squeeze. And so with the shoulder squeeze
and the Scapular squeezes, the big thing to remember is really
keep your shoulders relaxed and down. A lot times people kind of
try and squeeze up and go back. But you want them to be relaxed.
And you're squeezing those shoulder blades back almost like
if someone has their hand on your spine. And you're trying to
squeeze their hand with the two shoulder blades there. So I like
to say when if you haven't done these before, use your elbows as
a target. Really kind of getting back, but it's not just bringing
your elbows back. You're using those muscles, those rhomboid
muscles in the back on your spine to really get that
squeezing there. So I'm squeezing back trying to keep
those shoulder blades down, and then holding it for about three
to five seconds and relaxing. Now if you feel like you're not
getting the squeeze and you're just doing the elbows, you can
relax your arms and squeeze back. But sometimes that's it's
a little harder to do if you haven't done these before. And
sometimes having those elbows as a guide will be a little bit
easier. But again, just going back squeezing three to five
second hold. So you're really activating those muscles and
then relax and doing those couple times, or you can do it
for a timed amount of time. So there you have it. Those are
stretches and exercises for cervical spondylosis. If you'd
like to help support my channel, click on the link up there. And
don't forget to subscribe by clicking down there. And
remember, be safe, have fun, and I hope you feel better soon.