Neck Stretches - Neck Pain Relief That Works!

Transcript

[Music] hi thanks for stopping by let's give your neck a little love today shall we so let's sit up nice and tall you can do the sitting at your desk you can do it in the car you can do it wherever you are just nice and tall here and i want you to just gently tuck your chin and then bring it back it is a very small motion you'll see i'm not bringing my chin to my chest just left just yet i'm just kind of sliding the back of my head along an invisible wall okay one more like that we're just kind of getting it warmed up right good sit up nice and tall bring your hands behind your head i want the thumbs at the base of your skull your fingertips are in a lot interlocked and again you're sitting up tall feel like you're almost pulling your head up towards the ceiling now what i want you to do is twist to your right and then back to center and twist to your left so what we're doing now is trying to get the middle of your back your thoracic spine moving because believe it or not a lot of times when you get some neck pain and stiffness it's actually because that middle back isn't moving enough it gets really stiff so we're going to stretch the muscles and get your neck moving but at the same time help your posture in that middle back so that hopefully you don't get so much neck pain in the future okay come back and now just dip yourself over to one side and then lift back up and dip yourself to the other side it's almost like i'm trying to just dip my elbow in water one more each side trying to release that tension that happens throughout the day when we're hunched over computers and desks and steering wheels and cell phones good back up and bring it down now i want you to bring your right ear over to your right shoulder this is all we're going to do for a moment i just want the heaviness from your head to gently take you into a stretch good and now i want you to tip your head so that you're looking more down towards your right hip good and then back to center and lift your head back up and let's gently take it the other way so you can give a little over pressure with your head with your hand here but i find i don't usually need to and sometimes you can pull too much actually on a muscle or on your neck and cause it to tighten more so sometimes just the weight of your head and leaving your hands down nice and heavy or even sitting on your hands or holding underneath your chair sometimes just that is enough okay tilt your head so you're looking down towards your left hip good and then come all the way back up okay we're going to reach the arms up towards the ceiling find charlie's angels fingers here and just lift up nice and high okay so again you might be stiff in your middle spine and in your shoulders as well good okay now i want you to bring your right hand so that you're patting yourself behind the shoulder blades left hand comes up and we're just going to give a little gentle pull here for the tricep good reach the hands back up left hand comes find a stretch for the left arm nice and let's release that bring the hands behind you interlock the fingers reach them down and back and find just a teeny almost like a back bend here you can let the head look up if that feels okay good and then release that let's take the right ear to the right shoulder and i want you to give your self a neck circle over to the left okay and then take it forward again and over to the right so i personally don't do or teach this doing a full circle so i am not going to talk you through taking your head all the way back and looking up towards the ceiling okay there's really only so many extensions we have in our neck throughout our life and we really kind of want to protect that range of motion so we just go to the side and forward to the other side and let's just do one more just even yourself out nice job and sit up nice and tall okay if you're in a place where you can only sit that is a great routine if you can lay down i want you to go ahead and lay down for me and we're just going to do a minute or two of a couple things you can do laying down so we'll find ourself down and then here we're going to start the same way that we did where i just want a little chin tuck and then release so it's like i'm just sliding the back of my head on my mat i'm basically stretching like right at the base of my skull it looks like i'm not doing much but i promise i'm doing a lot nice okay now just take your head over to the left i'm just looking that way i've just rotated my head on my mat and bring it back up take it the opposite way good and this as well you really can do seated okay so you can just do this sitting and looking over one shoulder and then the other there's just something about being on your back that can help it relax if it's feeling really tight intense good and then back to center nice job what i want you to do is cross your right leg over your left bring your arms out to a t let your legs fall to the left and you're going to look to the right just releasing everything up and down your spine good carefully come back to center switch legs take them to the right you're going to look to the left back up release that hug your knees in and great job thanks so much for stopping by remember and you'll be notified every time a new video comes up like and comment on this video and let me know what you thought you could also always come over to jessica pilates.com to find all the resources i have for living a healthy lifestyle including full length workout videos healthy recipes and a community i would love for you to be a part of so i'll see you there