Today, I will present to you some exercises that are very easy to do to prevent neck pain and shoulder pain. From the previous video, we talked about some exercises you can do to focus on the mobility to and the range of motion.
Today, the exercises are a little bit different because they are more focused on the stability perspective, which is the stability of your shoulder blades. We often refer to this as the powerhouse— the core region as the primary core region.
But then we also mentioned the shoulder blade region, which is a secondary core. It's very important for the muscle to balance the upper quarter, which includes the neck, the shoulder, and even the upper extremity.
The stability needs to come from there, we need a stability so that we can not only carry a better posture, but to also minimize the stress that we're going to put into our shoulders.
In the long run, that can prevent a lot of problems. And it's very important for the stability exercises to come into play so that you have that stability to have that muscle balance. Before we start, get two-pound dumbbells, or you may use water bottles as a substitute.
The reason why we're starting this with a very lightweight exercise is because most of the people don't really have those muscles to engage, and they don't really work on those muscles on a regular basis. But later on, we can always progress to a much heavier weight, that's for sure.
3 Easy Shoulder Blade Stabilizing Exercises
1. Straight Arm Extension.
So, start with a standing squat position. It is not a lot of squatting but half squat, then make sure your spine and head are straight. The first variation of this exercise is you just pull and lift the weight behind your back. Do this for 2-3 sets to start with and 10-15 reps per set.
Straight Arm Snow Angel. For the second variation, just throw a snow angel to your side. When you reach overhead, make sure your arms are along the side of your eyeballs. If you find out that your arms are a little bit lower, that means you are out the form.
2. Progression: Higher Arms.
For this, just put your arms by your side as if you are reaching forward and come back. This starts from a little higher position, so this is going be a little bit more challenging.
3. Reverse Flying.
For this third exercise, position yourself with a letter T, then lift your arm backwards. Just keep going straight backwards.
Again, to start with these shoulder blade stabilizing exercises, you don't need very heavy weight because the purpose of these exercises is just to help you build up the muscular endurance so that you can support and have better posture, to prevent any stress from building up to the neck shoulder region.
So definitely start with a very lightweight. If you want to progress that, and make the exercises harder, increase the number of reps and sets or increase the holding tight or just slow down the speed and you're going to feel more challenge.
Start with 10 to 15 reps for each set and this star was two to three sets for each of this variation.
If you have any questions in terms of your neck or shoulder condition or anything related to your body, feel free to contact us. My name is Andy C. Tseng, an occupational therapist, as well as a Pilates instructor here at CORE Therapy and Pilates in Austin, Texas.
Feel free to give us a call at 512-215-4227 visit us at therapyandpilates.com or email us at info@therapyandpilates.com. We look forward to hearing from you. If you feel like this comments beneficial for you feel free to also subscribe to our YouTube channel.
That's all I got for today. I hope you guys have a great day.