How to loosen a tight painful neck! -MoveU

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This exercise is meant to ACTIVELY loosen up all the muscles in the back of the neck and the base of the skull. The added “W” with the arms helps to activate the mid back, which deactivates the upper trapezius and levator scapulae, taking tension off of the neck. Unlike the “passive stretch” we posted yesterday, this one is designed to activate your own weak muscles in the front of the neck and the mid back to stretch the tight muscles in the back of the neck and upper back. Do up to 2 minutes of this a couple times a day… SLOWLY.

Learning to retract the head straight back is something many of you continue to struggle with. While on a bench of the floor, try flattening your neck to the floor (it isn’t really possible, but try). This will activate the front of the neck and deactivate the muscles in the back of the neck. Upon turning the head, you are introducing movement into the joints, increasing blood flow, and stretching and activating the lil muscles around the spine.

If you are having severe pain doing this exercise, don’t do it as forcefully! Ease up a bit and focus primarily on the rotation, not the retraction. Make sure you are keeping those lower traps engaged with the arms in the W position and keep the ribs pulled down with the core engaged!

– Written by Andrew Dettelbach

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