Read the transcript for this video:

Good morning and welcome to your Weekly Cup of Joe. My name is Joe King and I'm the owner of Physical Therapy Advantage in North Aurora. This is our second part of a three-part series. We're going to be talking about posture. And the first one we just did was about using your phone alarm, and computer alarm, and doing a reset every 20 or 30 minutes. Today, we're going to talk about some stretches that you can do throughout the day. Three nice, easy stretches that you can do that can help you with your posture and keep you a little more loose throughout the day, and maybe not feel so congested and tightened and stressed by the end of the day, The first one's going to be is doing a doorway stretch. So we're going to use our bathroom doorway here at home. I'm doing this from home. So sorry for a little bit of darkness, but we do the doorway stretches. We do it in two fashions, arms down low, and then arms up about shoulder height or chest height, whatever feels comfortable to you.

So we get into the doorway, we put our hands down on the door frame around, we stand up nice and tall, and we take a step forward with whatever leg we want to. We hold that stretch for 15 to 30 seconds, deep breathing, relaxing. You stay in a good upright position; you don't tilt your head forward and lean forward like a ski jumper. You try to keep a nice straight back step, as far as you feel comfortable, just fun to feel nice, easy stretch throughout the chest, front the shoulders down the arms, even to your wrist potentially, when the arms are down low. Now, when we move the arms up, you find out what's comfortable for you. Hands-on the door frame here, you can put your hands out a little wider, maybe a little higher, maybe a little bit lower, whatever feels most comfortable to you. And now, the same thing, you take a step forward, you may take a smaller step forward with this one, which is totally fine, the same thing applies. Deep breathing, relaxing, no pain and you'll only go as far as you feel comfortable in that position, you take a smaller step, good, upright position. As I said, deep breathing, relaxing, no pain. You don't want to be feeling like you're vibrating, you don't want to be having any pain, because you can hurt yourself if you actually do stretches and create pain while you're stretching.

The next exercise for stretch would be reaching behind your back. If you don't have to have a doorway, you do the same similar stretches that now reach the hands behind the back just gently, one hand in the other, gently squeeze your shoulder blades together. Very gently, squeeze the shoulder blades together and then gently lift your arms back. So gently squeeze and then gently lift and hold that for 15 or 20 seconds. It's going to be a little more difficult to do that because you're not passive and you're not leaning in the door frame or stepping through, but you actually have to use your own muscles to pull it back. So 15 to 22nd stretch is three times for that is good, the door frame when we're in the doorway three times four, 15 to 30 seconds, each of those stretches arms down low arms up a little higher works really well. And then the last stretch can be the next stretch. Get in that same general position, arms resting on your backside, one hand over the top of the other as long as you feel, I can get that position; if you can't, you can just put your hands down by your side, totally find to modify it. And then stay in a nice, good upright position, lining up ears with shoulders and trunk and you just gently tilt to the side, deep breathing, relaxing, hold that position for 15 to 20, 30 seconds, whatever you like, and then we do the opposite side. You're going to find that one side is probably typically tighter than the other, which is normal for most people.

So those are your three exercises doorway up doorway down, hands behind the back, gently squeezing and lifting and then hands behind your back, gently tilting the neck from one side to the other side. And try to think about truly tilting instead of turning your head down, try to gently just truly like a clock tilt. We do that periodically throughout the day and doesn't matter how many times you can get it done throughout. When the alarm hits off, you may get up, reset yourself and you can do a stretch. So you can do that periodically throughout the day. If you have any other questions about these exercises, these stretches I should say, or anything else about posture, please don't hesitate to give us a call (630) 892-8003. And we look forward to seeing you next week for your Weekly Cup of Joe. Bye.