Best Exercises to Relieve Neck, Shoulder, and Upper Back Pain | Routine

hey everyone dr jeff peng here today we're  going to go over the best routine designed   to stretch out all your upper back your neck and  your shoulder muscles in order to provide you pain   relief this will actually be a two-part series  this first video we're going to go over all the   different stretches as well as the muscle groups  that we're trying to target the second video   will be the routine done in real time so you can  follow along with all the stretches so the first   muscle group we're going to target is the upper  trapezius and we're going to be doing 30 seconds   on each side so we're going to start on our right  side so what you want to do is put your right   hand behind your back drop your right shoulder  to relax all of your shoulder muscles and then   try to touch your left ear to your left shoulder  just like this what you can do with your left hand   is actually put it on top of your head and then  gently pull down gentle traction down and you're   going to get a deeper stretch by doing this and  where you're going to feel this is in the upper   part of your right neck right over here okay and  so let's try this on the left side so that means   left hand behind your left back right your right  shoulder gentle traction down and again now this   time because it's on the left side you're going  to feel it right here and don't yank on your head   just gentle traction down to try to get a bigger  and deeper stretch so the next muscle we're going   to target is our levator scapula so again we're  going to start on our right side so first put   your right hand behind your back and this time  what i want you to do is actually to look down   and then towards the outside of your left hip like  you're trying to aim your nose towards the very   outside of your left hip it's really important  to keep this right shoulder relaxed and then   with your left hand gently pull down on your head  and where you're going to feel this is right here   in your levator scapula so the levator scapulae  connects the bottom of your skull all the way   down towards the medial border of your scapula and  it's a muscle that gets really tight especially if   you spend a lot of time in front of screens okay  so we're going to also go on the other side so to   do your left side left hand behind your back relax  the left shoulder point your point your nose down   towards the outside of your right hip and then  gently pull down with your right hand and again   on this side you're going to feel it in this big  muscle group right here in your levator scapula the next muscle group we're going to target are  the rhomboids and the rhomboids sit on the inside   of your shoulder blades this is a really common  area for people to form these myofascial trigger   points that cause a lot of pain so what i want  you to do is put your hands together like this   and imagine you're trying to push something away  and as you're doing so tuck your chin to your   chest and try to form a ball with your upper back  and we're going to hold this for a total of 30   seconds and it's really important that you try  to breathe through this stretch and every time   you breathe try to sink in a little bit more  and create a rounder ball to stretch out all   those muscles in your upper back now we're going  to move on into some trunk rotations and we're   going to hold each side for 30 seconds so i have  my legs facing forward and what i'm going to do   is i'm going to rotate my chest and my upper back  towards my right side and if you have a chair that   you can hold on to to try to help you rotate that  can help provide some stability otherwise you can   hold the bottom of a chair and get the same thing  now if this is as far as you can get don't worry   as you are holding that stretch you should be  able to try to rotate a little bit farther and   a little bit deeper into that stretch okay so to  do the left side again my legs are facing forward   and now i'm rotating my chest towards the left  side hanging onto the back of the chair and   holding this for a total of 30 seconds now we're  going to move on into the shoulders and the first   thing we're going to work on is shoulder external  rotation so external rotation is this motion but   in order to get a deeper stretch what you can do  with your left hand is bring it under your elbow   come around wrap around and then push down and  you're going to get a bigger stretch this way and   where you should be feeling this is right out here  so as you push down with your left hand you're   going to feel a bigger stretch on the outside of  your right shoulder and we're going to be holding   each side for 30 seconds so in order to do the  left side again it's this motion wrap your right   hand up and around and then push down and then  where you're going to feel is towards the outside   of your left shoulder when you're doing this  you're going to feel it out here and holding this   side for 30 seconds as well now we're going to  move on into our posterior capsule stretch and the   posterior capsule is all the way back here so in  order to stretch this area we're going to bend our   elbow bring it around use our hand and then push  straight backwards this way and again where you're   going to feel it is in that posterior capsule all  the way back here and this is a very common area   especially if we're spending so much time in front  of our computers and our keyboards and not moving   this area gets so tight and so you really want  to be focusing on stretching that area and you   sometimes you do need to push a little bit harder  in order to push straight back in order to stretch   out this area so to do the left side again bend  your elbow push use your right hand and push it   straight back and we're going to feel it is all  the way back here in that posterior capsule we'll   be holding this for 30 seconds on each side the  next shoulder stretch we're going to do is our   inferior capsule now in order to stretch this  bring your right hand above your head bend your   right elbow use your left hand and push straight  down and where you're going to feel this is in   two places the first is that inferior capsule of  your right shoulder and you're actually going to   feel it in your triceps and what you can do is if  this is not enough sometimes you can actually lean   towards your left side and where you can also feel  it is right down here in your latissimus dorsi   and so to do the other side bend your left elbow  right hand push straight down and you're going to   feel that in that inferior capsule and if you  want to you can lean towards that right side   a little bit to get a deeper stretch as well as  feel it in that latissimus dorsi on the left side   so the next thing we're going to move on into is  a neck pull down stretch and we're going to hold   this for a total of 30 seconds so what i want you  to do is to try to touch your chin to your chest   use both hands put it at the top of your head and  then just gentle traction down and the goal of   this stretch is to stretch out all of those tiny  neck muscles that sit at the base of your skull   right up here and when these get too tight it is  a really common cause of persistent headaches and   persistent migraines and so stretching these  muscles out are extremely important i'm just   going to hold this for a total of 30 seconds the  last stretch we're going to do is to open up our   chest and our anterior shoulders and so what  i want you to do is to clasp your hands put it   behind your back push down and then push out and  then where you're going to feel it is all over in   the front of your chest as well as your anterior  shoulders and so we're holding this for a total of   30 seconds this routine is excellent at stretching  out all the upper back neck and shoulder muscles   that cause pain feel free to jump straight into  that real time stretch routine to get relief you   want to aim to do this at least twice a day to  get maximum benefit thanks and see you next time

Channel: Jeffrey Peng MD

Views: 347,940

Keywords: stretches for stiff neck upper back, Stretches for stiff neck and upper back, neck pain relief, stiff neck, tight neck muscles, neck stretches, neck pain stretch, upper back pain stretches, upper back pain relief, upper back pain between shoulder blades, upper back stretches, upper back pain relief exercises, upper back stretches for pain relief, neck stretches for neck pain, neck stretches for stiff neck, neck stretches for tension headaches, neck stretches before bed

Id: y9RcwV1oXu0

Length: 7min 7sec (427 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 21 2021