Tag Archives: shoulder pain

Fitness Guru-How to find tight neck and shoulder relief

Featured

Posted on by

If your neck and shoulders are chronically tight, not only does it feel bad, but neck and shoulder limitations affect the biomechanics of your body.

Conversely, when you have balance and alignment in everyday life, you establish a great starting point for exercise. Rolling on balls has become an increasingly popular way to target areas of your body that are restricted and tight. Ball exercises can target areas in the neck and upper back that are otherwise not easily accessible. Using a ball specifically for these troublesome areas allows you to hit tender points and virtually melt them out of your body.

If you consider that your head weighs anywhere between 9 and 12 pounds, a forward position of the head can wreck havoc on your neck and shoulders. Consider that the weight of the head effectively doubles for every inch forward of its optimal alignment. Not only does this create neck and shoulder tension, but the position of the head and neck affects the alignment of the whole body.

Furthermore, internally-rotated arms, caused by rounded posture—a result of looking at a computer screen throughout the day—or elevated shoulders, increase the likelihood of upper back discomfort. Rolling a tennis ball along the neck and shoulders penetrates deep into the musculature, helps pull your head back into neutral and gives you gentle extension in your upper back.

Another benefit of ball rolling on your upper back is that you are creating a ball bearing between your body and the floor. This allows more extensive movement on the floor, so that your upper back will feel more spread out and relaxed.

Tennis ball on the shoulder blade

Tennis ball on top of the shoulder blade

Rejuvenate and mobilize the upper back and shoulder blades with tennis ball rolling. This exercise targets the muscles in the upper back that have become chronically lengthened by internally-rotated arms: the infraspinatus and teres minor and the trapezius muscles.

Lie on your back and place a tennis ball on top of your shoulder blade. Use a pillow under your neck for proper head alignment.

Hug the opposite shoulder in order to increase pressure on the ball.

Push with your feet to move the ball, finding a tender spot. Try to relax while breathing normally. Hold for 20-30 seconds.

Gently move your body up, down and sideways to find additional sore spots.

Tennis ball on the back of the neck

The “Tennis ball on the back of the neck” exercise can ne used to target specific tight or sore spots.

This exercise helps regenerate the tissues of the neck—so that the neck can flex more easily—and allows the head to move back into better alignment.

Lie on your back and place a tennis ball under your neck. Use a pillow or towels to support your head.

Apply pressure for 20-30 seconds at each sore spot, for a total of 2-3 minutes.

Next, perform the following stretch:

Back of neck stretch

Neck stretching can help provide relief from tension and pain.

The muscles of the neck have a natural curve to help maintain stability and maintain alignment over the body. When this curve is overstretched or exaggerated in any way, it can become quite uncomfortable. This stretch helps release tightness in the neck.

Place your hands on top of your head, keep your elbows together, and pull your shoulders down using your mid-back muscles.

Pull your chin to your chest to feel the stretch in the back of your neck and shoulders.

Hold for 20 seconds, and repeat the cycle three times.

Published in the Idaho Mountain Express Jan.5, 2024.

https://www.mtexpress.com/wood_river_journal/features/fitness-guru-how-to-find-tight-neck-and-shoulder-relief/article_07ce84f8-ab2a-11ee-a9ff-a7fbfeece97e.html

Modernize your workout. Lose a few old popular exercises

Posted on by

Modernize your workout with safe new moves

You may already lift weights, but is your workout working? What if you modernize a few moves? With the growing prevalence of chronic and overuse injuries, particularly in the middle- age population, you might be ready for safer alternative exercises. In 2013, there were more than 10 million doctor’s office visits for both lower back pain and shoulder symptoms. The shoulder joint and the back are two important areas where the combination of previous injuries and inappropriate exercises can initiate injury, damage soft tissue or exacerbate an existing injury. Behind-the-neck pulldowns and loaded lateral flexion (e.g. dumbbell side bends), once fitness standards, are two examples. Choosing newer, evidence-based alternative exercises can save you time visiting doctors and physical therapists and help you reap better training results.

Be kind to your shoulders

    A traditional exercise is behind-the-neck pulldowns. Forget your old high school training and don’t put the shoulder and cervical spine at risk of injury. It is estimated that up to 70 percent of people have a shoulder injury in their lifetime. Shoulders need the strength and flexibility that allow you to reach, hold, lift, carry, press and pull, pretty much what you do daily. It’s the most movable joint, and very shallow at that. The shoulder joint is a ball-and-socket joint, with the ball—the head of the upper arm—attaching into a small shallow socket (glenoid fossa), giving the joint inherent instability, often described as a golf ball sitting on a tee. The shoulder is also held together with an elaborate system of muscles, tendons and ligaments, including the rotator cuff muscles, which stabilize the joint during all the pushing and pulling activities that you do. Pulling a bar down behind your neck can lead to rotator cuff instability, suprascapular neuropathy and an increased risk of anterior capsule instability.

The same is true of behind-the-neck shoulder presses, with their risk of repetitive stresses on the joint because of the extreme range of motion. Bringing weights down behind the cervical spine causes excessive forward head tilt, or flexion, and has risk, as it could lead to transient upper-extremity paralysis or transient nerve injury. Aim for having your arms 30 degrees in front of you to allow your weights to be positioned in your body’s center of gravity throughout the lifts instead. You’ll have a better mechanical advantage, and better sports specificity.

Best abs ever

    What is the right workout that will preserve your back instead of destroying it? Dr. Stuart McGill, professor of spine biomechanics at the University of Waterloo, thinks that often the causes of back troubles are replicated in the exercises. When it comes to core work, often the public and even personal trainers focus on moves like sit-ups, often loaded with weight, or back hyperextension called ” Superman,” an extended posture that results in intervertebral disk loading. Similar exercises such as Pilates roll-ups or Russian twists, for strong abs, says McGill in his book “Back Mechanic,” put unnecessary loads, compression and strain on the discs. The loaded dumbbell side bend, for example, increases the likelihood of disc herniation.

  Planks and exercises like the framer’s carry improve core stiffness and trunk endurance—much better predictors of low back health. Super stiffness builds whole body stability, while sparing the joints. Splitting wood with an axe is an example that McGill uses as an analogy:  At the instant of impact, a total body “stiffness” is generated by a rapid contraction of all your core muscles, and spares your back. Check out link for safe alternative exercises~ /vimeo.com/251402324
Published in the Idaho Mt. Express January 19, 2018.