Have you experienced pain in your shoulder or neck and it just won’t go away? Or what about when you first wake up in the morning and you just feel “stiff”? Or how about when you are sitting at your desk and just feel that pain area starts to tighten up and become even more painful? Or have you been in an accident before, and your neck still hurts 3 – 5 years later?! Or having a nagging headache or migraine that is not going away!?
Well, if this sounds like you, then give me just 5 minutes of your time and I will provide 5 exercises that will help with that pain and provide some relief!
Your head already weighs about 10-15 pounds but, did you know that for every 15 degrees your head goes down, you add close to 20 lbs of force onto your neck?! At 30 degrees of bending your head forward, that’s an added 40 lbs. of pressure on your neck. I don’t know about you, but that is A LOT of added pressure on your neck when it is already feeling discomfort! And, if you’re someone that likes to look down to look at your phone, or when reading, or playing video games, for long periods of the day, that constant added pressure will slowly build up. It may not happen right away, but it builds up gradually until you just can’t take the pain anymore and you look for help in relieving the pain.
All this pressure into your neck can have huge impacts on your shoulder as well. If it’s not from a traumatic experience, your shoulder can start to take a brunt of the workload because there are so many muscles that connect to the shoulder blade and the humerus (the upper bone of the arm) that those muscles start to become tired. This then creates poor biomechanics in the shoulder blade and the shoulder itself, thus causing more damage to the shoulder, but it is all stemming from…???? You guessed it, the neck!
But how are you going to fix it? You can’t just go to multiple doctor’s appointments, PT appointments, physical therapy online programs, acupuncture, massage therapy, etc. to try and fix the problem. Well you could, BUT most of these things are short term fixes, and if you’ve been to a physical therapist through your insurance already, you already know how it feels to be just another body. The PT may be great, but they don’t have the time to listen to you and assess what is really going on. If your shoulder is bothering you, they may not be able to take the time to assess your neck or spine to find out that this is the main cause of your irritation.
Enter me, your Doctor of Physical Therapy that will be with you every step of the way to help you with alleviating your neck and/or shoulder pain, regardless of whether it is pain or to help injury. I will be able to take the time to listen to you, to help you reach your goals, to help you in alleviating that aggravating pain, and to get you back to doing the activities you enjoy with little to no pain! These are tips and tricks provided by an actual doctor of physical therapy who has physical therapy certifications rather than your typical physical therapy aide or physical therapy assistant. That’s where Elevate concierge physical therapy can better help injuries.
5 Physical Therapy Exercises
Here are 5 physical therapy exercises that you can start doing today to help decrease that neck and shoulder pain or even any of your neck or shoulder injuries.
1) Chin Tucks with Scapular Retraction
a. 10 second holds and perform for 4 sets of 15. Perform 2x/day
b. Now you may have done these exercises before, but I want you to be able to combine the movements. When we start to slouch, our neck and head pushes forward and our shoulders roll forward, causing those faulty biomechanics in our shoulder and head. This exercise is utilized to help decrease those faulty biomechanics and improve the strength and endurance of the muscles.
c. If you get a lot of your pain when sitting or standing, do this exercises lying down on your back, or if you get pain when lying on your back, try doing it on your stomach with a rolled towel under your forehead so you keep your neck a little more relaxed, or you can do it sitting or standing. Wherever you feel the most relief.
2) Prone Extensions with Palms Facing up and then Palms Facing Down
a. 3 second hold at the top and perform 4 sets of 15, 1- 2x/day
b. Now that we have preset your shoulders and neck into a better position, we want to start improving the shoulder and mid back muscles. If you can tolerate this position, awesome, if not, then you can perform this in standing.
c. As best you can, do not activate your upper traps. What I mean by that is try not to shrug your shoulders toward your ear. This creates more strength into the neck muscles, which we are trying to alleviate. Perform with palms facing up and then palms facing down, strengthening up the different shoulder muscles
3) Prone W
a. Perform 4 sets of 8, 1-2 second hold if possible, perform 1-2x/day
b. Another exercise on your stomach, if position tolerable, where we are focusing on the mid back muscles to take some stress off the upper traps.
c. Similar set-up to the exercise above, but arms are now bent to your side. Lifting your arms up and maintaining those wrists up as well, don’t let them fall below your elbows.
4) Quadruped Thread the Needle
a. 3 second hold in each position, perform 10x each direction for 3 sets, 3x/days.
b. Now you may be thinking, this isn’t an exercise for my neck?! Well you would be, technically, right, but also wrong. If our neck and shoulders are stiff, our Thoracic spine (upper, mid, and higher low back spinal joints) will become stiff as well, thus needing to get those joints moving better!
c. Getting onto all 4’s (hands and knees) you put one hand behind your head and rotate towards the ceiling and then push that same arm through the opening on the other side of your body. This creates joint opening in both directions and improves the joint mobility of the upper thoracic spine.
5) Peanut Ball – self release at base of skull and at lower C/S
a. Perform for 30-90 seconds for multiple times throughout the day.
b. You can buy a peanut ball on amazon for about 15 dollars and click here for a link to amazon to get one. I am not an affiliate by no means, just a quick search on amazon and in my professional opinion I think this is the best one to get. But shop around and get one that is for the neck, and not the big ones for pregnancy!
c. Literally just lay on this thing for a minute or two and allow yourself to relax into and take big deep breaths through your DIAPHRAGM (Look out for another blog post coming out soon about how to take big breaths through the diaphragm).
Well party people, I hope these help. Of course there are multiple other options that you can do, but these are some of the ones that I give my patients to help themselves!
If you are looking for “Physical Therapist near me” or “Physical Therapy in Menifee” or “Physical Therapy near Murrieta CA” or “Physical Therapy Saturday Hours” or “Physical Therapy near Temecula CA” or (insert your city here), I know I can help you. And if I can’t, I can guide you to others that can!
Feel free to reach out to me via any of your preferred methods. CLICK HERE to schedule a free 15 minute discovery session to get started today to feel better or check out the website for more information.
Phone Number – (951) 206-6331
Email – richard@elevateyoupt.com
Instagram – @elevateyoudpt
Thank you for taking your time to read this, I hope these exercises feel good and make you feel better!
If this blog did help you, and you want to take action on getting these injuries taken off and take your life back, schedule that discovery call with me and let me help you get you back to YOU and ElevateYou!
-Dr. Richi K., Physical Therapist
ElevateYou Physical Therapy
MEDICAL DISCLAIMER
All information on this blog is intended for instruction and informational purposes only. The authors are not responsible for any harm or injury that may result. Significant injury risk is possible if you do not follow due diligence and seek suitable professional advice about your injury. No guarantees of specific results are expressly made or implied on this blog.
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