4 Amazing Stretches For Your Tight, Stiff Neck (THIS WORKS!)

what's up guys dr jared here tone and titan and these are four stretches you can do every single day to eliminate tension and pain in your neck now it's interesting more and more people are coming into my physical therapy clinic with complaints of neck pain but they're not from accidents and injuries these people are spending more time seated at a desk we're looking at screens we're on zoom calls we're looking at our phone over time this pain starts to develop and they don't know why well it's because of that posture that position that we sit in puts a lot of tension on our neck which can eventually become pain and that's when they start to see me so if we can eliminate that tension if we can do that with the right stretches and exercises you're going to start to feel better you're going to start to move better and that pain is going to go away so that's what i wanted to share in this video of course if you do find some benefit from these stretches hit the thumbs up button to like this video also leave me a comment down below let me know your experience i'd love to hear from you guys that being said first stretch coming your way right in now all of these stretches can be done seated or standing whatever's more comfortable and convenient for you and i typically recommend people run through them two to three times a day we're going to get started with everyone's favorite stretch this is a chin tuck a lot of times the base of your skull the muscles right here at the base of your skull get tight from this poor posture in order to stretch those out we actually have to tuck our head back over our shoulders and back over our neck in this direction and so sit up with really good posture what we're going to do is use our muscles to pull our chin back into our head until we get this really nice double chin right here the uglier double the uglier the double chin the better the stretch and so you're going to pull that chin back you're going to hold that for about a three second count and then you're going to reset back to neutral pull the chin back hold one two three and then reset to neutral keep in mind we're not knotting the head down in this direction you're pulling the chin straight back until you should get a good stretch right here at the base of your skull is where i want you to feel that so again about three to five second holds repeated for about 20 to maybe even 30 repetitions stretch number two is going to be for the big muscle right up here this is called your upper trapezius this is an ear to shoulder stretch sit again with really good posture now tilt your head to one side so right now my left ear is going down towards my left shoulder with my left hand i can then grab the right side of my head and apply just a very gentle over pressure to it until i get a good comfortable stretch right here through the right side of my neck i want you to try to keep this right shoulder down as much as you can sometimes it helps to sit on your hand while you do it or you can just tuck that hand behind your back but again the goal is to stretch to increase the distance between my ear and the tip of my shoulder until i get a good stretch through this upper trapezius muscle i would hold that in a comfortable position for 20 seconds and then i would repeat that over here to the other side so now right here over the right shoulder stretching the left side of the neck try to keep that left shoulder down and nice and relaxed so again 20 seconds here and then i repeat that three times to each direction now stretch number three is one of my personal favorites it's for a big muscle that sits right back here in the back of your neck called your levator scapulae muscle this is going to be the smell your armpit stretch what we're going to do is gaze about 45 degrees to one direction so about 45 degrees to the left side and then what i'm going to do is tuck my chin down into my chest now with my left hand i'm going to reach up to the back of my head and then apply just a slight over pressure kind of down into this angle and so again this is why we call it the smell your armpit stretch we're kind of going down at that angle until i just get a really good comfortable stretch right here in the back of my neck please keep your stretching comfortable and then we're going to hold it there for a 20 second hold come up out of that and now we're going to repeat that over here to the right side so now my nose goes down towards my right armpit until i get a good stretch on that left side of my neck hold it there for 20 seconds and then we're going to repeat that three times each direction finally the last motion that i like or the last motion that we're going to stretch in is going to be a rotation motion now for this stretch you do need a pillowcase or a hand towel that's about this big what i'm going to do is grab that on opposite corners so that it's nice and long and then we're going to introduce a rotation stretch with this so loop that over the back of your head try to keep the towel up nice and high meaning i don't want the towel to be way down here low try to keep it nice and high up here on the top of your neck now what we're going to do is first step let go of the towel um everyone gets this wrong let go of the towel and then cross your arms and then grab both ends of the towel right now my left hand is on top of my right so my right is going to stay down against my chest as my left arm pulls this part of the towel right across my cheekbone as i rotate over here towards the left side i'm going to pull on that and rotate just until i get a good comfortable stretch again right here at the base of the skull and then i'm going to hold that for a 20 second count come down and now really important you're going to switch your hands so now my right hand is going to come on top of my left and then everything is just reversed so left hand stays against the chest right hand is going to pull that towel right here across my cheekbone until i get a good stretch kind of in the left top part of my skull right there we're going to hold that for 20 seconds and then we're going to repeat that three times to each direction and again two to three times a day is what i typically recommend for patients with these exercises okay i've got a couple of bonuses for you as well if you do find yourself having neck pain at work it might be because of your posture and your ergonomics if you need help with that check out this video right here if you get neck pain while you're sleeping here's the video that i want you to check out if you want to supplement these stretches with some postural strengthening click right here if you want to subscribe to tone and titan i hope you do click the circle right there we'll see you again soon right here on tona titan

Channel: Tone and Tighten

Views: 93,622

Keywords: Stretches for neck pain, Neck pain relief exercises, Neck stretching exercises, Stiff neck exercises, Tight neck muscles, Stiff neck relief, Neck pain relief, Stiff neck stretches, Tight neck stretches, Stiff neck, tight neck muscles stretches, tight neck exercises, stretches for neck, stretches for neck tension, stretches for neck stiffness, Jared Beckstrand, Tone and Tighten, neck pain, physical therapy

Id: t8Lbfc-gja0

Length: 5min 48sec (348 seconds)

Published: Thu May 12 2022