Weekly Cup of Joe - Episode #26 - Neck Stretches

Read the transcript for this video:

Good morning! Happy Friday and welcome to your Weekly cup of Joe. I apologize, this one is a couple of days late. I would say it's the inclement weather and the cold stuff that we've been having but nope, just falls on me that, this Cup of Joe is coming out a couple of days later this week. So I apologize if you're looking for it on Wednesday, it's going to come out on Friday. So, I woke up with a stiff neck this morning and I'm not sure why, what happened, whatever the case may be, but thought that'd be a great start to a Cup of Joe that to show you guys a couple of easy exercises, stretching exercise that is to help alleviate that tightness and soreness and stiffness that might be in your neck that's bother you and maybe coming from increased computer time or working from your home office kind of thing.

And it's not the best or could be driving in these conditions in the snowy icy conditions; it's a little more stressful. Could be coming from shovelling snow and just lifting some of the heavier snow or dealing with some of the ice and stuff and working outside. So whatever the case may be, or just to happens to be random, like mine is, just wanted to throw a few things out to you today. So the first thing is posture always is just wanting to be in the best, not the best posture we can be in. So you want to try to think about lining ear holes with the center of your shoulder, the center of your trunk and your hips. So not being in a slouched position like you maybe prefer to be, to want to be in a more upright position. You don't have to be in a forced gun military position where your head is back and your shoulders or way back your chest is sticking out. You just want to be in a more upright position where we're lined up a little more appropriately. So instead of being here, working out in front of us, we want to be more here in a more upright position, more frequently. So set your alarm on your phone for every 30 minutes, that's your posture check, no matter where you're at car work, kitchen, or wherever you might be, you can do a posture check and a posture reset every 30 minutes. And you can take that time to do these three stretching exercises, especially if you're feeling some stress and strain and tension and tightness in your neck, give some soreness, maybe some mild pain.

The first one is, that we want to get up in a nice, good posture, and we want to just basically tilt our head to the side. So you're bringing your ear down to your shoulder and we do the other side as well. Tilt, keeping the face straightforward. You're just tilting the head down or the ears of the shoulder, not bringing the shoulder up to the ear, but head down and ear down to the shoulder. We will hold all stretches for 20 seconds, we're deep breathing, we're relaxing, no pain. So that's stretch number one, just tilt to the side. The next one you're going to do is, we're going to tilt and then we're going to look up at the ceiling. Same thing, another side; we tilt like we did the first stretch. Start to get nice and stretch there. And then we're going to look up at the ceiling while you're staying in that tilted position. Now you should feel a little more, maybe in the front part of your neck. All the while you're in a good upright posture when you're doing those stretches the same thing before, deep breathing, relaxing, no pain holding each stretch for 20 seconds. We do three of those on each side. And the last one we're going to do is a combination of a tilted rotation. So now the same thing, you start with that tilt again and now after tilting, now we're going to turn our chin down to our shoulder. As we're looking down the floor, the same thing; tilt, and then now chin down. You should feel a little bit more stretched behind the ear, maybe down in the top part of your shoulder blade, a little bit more little different stretch than the other two. So those are three great stretches for the neck muscles. Tilt, tilt and look up, tilt and turn the chin look down. Like I said before, no pain, deep breathing, relaxing, and staying in good posture when you're doing it. And hopefully, three times on each side for 20 seconds, should feel a pretty good stretch. And the next should feel a little bit looser when you're done.

So give those a try, always call the clinic (630) 892-8003 if you have any questions about these or anything else. And just a reminder on February 22nd, we are having a Free Shoulder and Rotator Cuff Workshop, be virtual and in person. So we're doing both, not sure how it's divided up yet, if do one virtual first and one in person, how we're in time divided up yet. But we're offered on both and see which ones, see how many people sign up for those. The registration for that is below here; the link for that, definitely go ahead and do so. And I think there will be a little shoulder link for a promotion about the shoulder workshop down there too. So you can take a look at that as well. Have a fantastic week and we'll see you next Wednesday! Get back on track for your Weekly Cup of Joe. Bye.