Does your phone and computer have you slouching and looking down in bad postures resulting in some muscle knots in that neck and shoulders?
Well it's a common complaint I hear all the time and watch this video to learn three exercises that you can start doing today to help improve those muscle knots.
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So how can I release the muscle knots in my upper back and shoulders? Well by the end of this video you'll know three exercises to help get rid of the muscle knots in your upper trapezius muscles.
My name is Stephen Dunn, I'm a Holistic Physical Therapist and I've helped thousands of patients over my 23-year career as a physical therapist and I look forward to helping you as well.
So now I'm going to have my wife Cheryl and the co-owner of CORE Therapy and Pilates demonstrate three best exercises to release muscle knots that you can do right now.
3 Best Exercises to Release Muscle Knots in the Neck
#1 Chin Tucks
All right, so now what we're going to teach you is a chin tuck. So what tends to happen is because we're looking at our phones and driving our heads tends to sit forward, So what we want to do is, you want to think of your chin coming back and your neck lengthening up.
So you want to exhale, engage your abdominals, pull the chin back and think of lengthening up through the crown of the head and then release that and repeat. Exhale, engage the abdominals, chin back and lengthen the neck up...and you want to repeat that for about 20 times.
#2 Wall Snow Angels
Okay, now we're going to do snow angels at the wall. So you want to have your back pressed back against the wall and be as close to it as possible and have your palms open and you want to inhale, keep your abdominals engaged, sliding your arms up the wall and exhale bringing them down.
You just want to check your posture and make sure that your feet are reaching into the ground so that you're nice and tall and that your head is reaching to the ceiling.
You're going to inhale reach your arms up over your head keeping your arms along the wall and exhale bringing them back down and you want to repeat that about 20 times.
#3 Kneeling Spinal Flexion &Extension
So we're going to do a little kneeling flexion and extension with the spine. So you're going to start on all fours, you want your hands right underneath your shoulders and your knees right underneath your hips and we're going to go into a little extension.
You want to inhale, draw your scapulas down your back and think of reaching your heart out. Don't let your belly hang here. Think of your waistline staying long and then exhale you're going to go into some flexion by curling your tail bone under, reaching your knees through the ground, and hollowing out your belly.
Now you don't want to lift your shoulders into your ears, you want to keep them down. Inhale back into extension pulling your heart through your shoulder girdle and exhale tucking your tail under, hollowing out your belly, reaching your knees through the ground and you can continue to do this for 10 to 20 reps using your breath to move you through the movement.
Now comment below and tell me how the three exercises have helped you. I'd love to get your feedback.
It'll give you some essential tips that you can start utilizing today to help with your neck and shoulder pain.
Thanks for watching guys. This is the last in our series and I hope that you've learned how to manage the muscle knots in your upper back. We'll see you soon.