How to Get Rid of a Neck Hump (5 Exercises for a Total Posture Makeover)

when you see young people with a big fatty neck hump right in here it's because their body is laying down fat deposits around the spine to protect it because it's having to hold that forward head posture forward head posture is very very often connected to forward shoulders and a very tight chest and so in order to get that head to get back into alignment we need to open that chest and so that's what this next series of exercises is designed to do the first exercise we're going to do is called the reach up reach back and so I'm going to cross my arms in front of me and I'm going to hook the thumbs and my thumbs are hooked because I'm actually using my back to pull my arms apart so if my thumbs weren't hooked they would just pop backwards so I'm hooking the thumbs pulling my arms apart raising my arms above my head as far as I can getting a nice stretch and then I'm going to turn my Palms towards each other now leaving the Palms facing up that's really important I'm going to slowly bring the arms down now I'm not just bringing them down exactly at my sides I'm pulling them back engaging the muscles of the upper back as I go and getting a nice stretch through the shoulders let's do 20 of those this is a great exercise because it lubricates the shoulder joints it opens the chest and it strengthens the back be sure to take a big deep breath in as you lift and exhale and release as you drop [Music] be sure you're not arching your back keep your neck relaxed you might want to try alternating which thumb you put on top as you're [Music] lifting and don't skimp on the upper back workout really pull your arms open as you're releasing [Music] down this is such a great exercise if you could do 20 a day you would really see a difference in your shoulder range of motion the openness of your chest and the strength in your upper [Music] back so for this stretch we're going to use a rolled up towel you can see just kind of put some tape on mine to keep it uh together if you decide that you want it to be a thicker prop you can roll two towels together you can just kind of play with what you want um two towels together is going to be a deeper stretch first we're going to start off with that lengthwise rolled towel stretch so it might take a little adjusting to get it just in the right spot and you roll open you might feel a couple little adjustments in your spine and again Palms towards the ceiling and just breathe and relax and feel your body open and when you're ready go ahead and move your hands into a y position remember relaxation is the key if your arms don't want to stay in that wide position you can hold on to something like a couple of cans of soup or water bottles or something if you need that little bit of extra weight if your shoulders are not cooperating and lastly into that Superman position getting the maximum stretch there in that upper back relaxing the neck and again when you're done roll to the side and sit up so these are two exercises that are really going to strengthen the upper back so I'm going to show you the positioning while I'm sitting up but it actually occurs lying down so the first thing is starting with my arms in a goalpost position and I'm going to reach one arm at a time up above my head but I'm maintaining contact with the ground it's harder than it sounds so essentially the position is going to look like this one arm at a time going up and the second exercise is going to be pushing back into the ground with my elbows it'll make sense when we do it so let's just go ahead and get into position so I'm going to be on my back really relaxing my legs and first thing we're going to go into that goalpost position now the trick like I said is to keep contact with the ground at all times your tendency is going to be to want to lift your elbow up towards the ceiling so make sure it's stuck to the ground the whole time so we're going to move that first arm up above the head now if you're going like this that's breaking contact only go as far as you can go while maintaining contact you might not be able to straighten it all the way and you should find that it has um it requires a great deal of muscle strength in the upper back let's do the other [Music] side so you want to do about 20 of those on each side get as high as you can and once again maintain contact with the ground here we go These Arm slides are deceptively difficult you really need to use a lot of upper back strength in order to keep that arm down against the ground every time you straighten your arm you can go ahead and try to get it up a little higher a little straighter above your head once you warm up a little bit you should be able to get more range of motion in the position be sure you're not tensing your belly or engaging any muscles in your legs to do this keep the rest of the body totally relaxed even try to relax the neck even though there's a lot of action going on around [Music] it do the movement nice and slowly you'll get the full benefit of all of the strengthening exercise if you just just do it nice and slow very calculated very smooth keep breathing find some relaxation even though you're working hard try not to tense other parts of your body that makes you work harder than you need to that's exerting more energy than you need to only use the energy that is needed to do the exercise and leave the rest of the body to relax now when you're done we're going to rotate the arms so that your fists are pointed towards the ceiling and what we're going to do is we're just going to push into the ground with your elbows it's a static um it's a static position but I'm push push push pushing it doesn't look like much but all of my muscles in my upper back are screaming at me I'm really firing those muscles pulling the shoulder blades together pushing my elbows into the ground and relax take a minute shake it out a little bit we're going to do it two more times ready [Music] push keep pushing keep pushing hard as you can and [Music] relax all right let's do one more we're going to hold it a little longer and push push push push push push hard your muscle should be screaming at you this is an exercise push push push push push the more we strengthen that upper back the better our posture is going to be let's let's even out those muscle imbalances push push push push push your tricep should be talking to you the back of your shoulders the upper back everything 10 9 8 7 six five you should be shaking three two and relax and Shake It Out take a breath now this next one is a seated row and we want to pay attention to making sure that we're putting our body in right angles as we do this so the first right angle that we're going to do is we're going to bring the arms out straight at a right angle from my vertical body and then I'm going to create right angles with my elbows and there's a right angle between my upper arm and my body then I'm going to put my thumbs up and come into this position and again my arms are still at right angles and so are my armpits all right so what I'm doing is I'm strengthening the upper back so when I get into this first position I'm pulling my shoulder blades together and I'm getting my elbows back as far as I can and then my thumbs come up and I'm putting my thumbs back as far as I can so I'm really engaging the upper back so you can inhale and exhale [Music] it might help to put the chair up against a wall where you can have your elbows and thumbs touch the wall as a frame of reference to make sure that you're not kind of slacking off as you get a couple under your belt it helps to Exhale when you're bringing your thumbs up you're thinking about keeping your shoulders nice and low and you're not arching the back at all you're keeping a nice neut neutral spine make sure you're not drooping your elbows down as you get a little bit tired keep them up make sure there's a right angle between your upper arm and your body as well as between your upper arm and your forearm pull those shoulder blades together feel the burn all through your shoulders your upper back and the backs of your arms don't let up there's only a few more good roll those [Music] shoulders

Channel: Posture Makeover

Views: 7,013,109

Keywords: neck hump, fatty, hump back, forward head, posture, makeover, ergonomic, michelle joyce, stretches, exercises, pain, slump, buffalo hump, old lady hump, hunchback, text neck, iposture

Id: 0OkB0xO_9kU

Length: 13min 27sec (807 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 29 2017