Sitting at a laptop or driving for hours every day can take its toll on your neck and shoulders. The most common cause of non-traumatic neck pain is caused by tight muscles in the neck. Tight neck muscles are frequently the result of months/years of tight and rounded shoulders. Target the muscles that could cause pain with the following neck and shoulder stretches. Don’t do these stretches if you’ve been involved in a recent accident involving the head/neck. Check with your doctor or healthcare professional first.
Did you know headaches are commonly caused by tight muscles in the neck and shoulders??
It’s important that you can relax into a stretch and any discomfort should diminish, not increase! Take a few moments to relax and take some deep, slow breaths from the stomach. Sitting down works best for neck stretches but try and make sure you are sitting ‘tall’. Imagine a piece of string attached to the crown of your head and is pulling you up.
Before performing the stretches start by slowing rolling your shoulders forward and back. Then slowly circling your head clockwise and then counter-clockwise to gently mobilise the area.
More information with a nice video describing how to do neck stretches is here.
Another video demonstrating neck stretches is below…
Excessive muscle tension (resting tone) can develop subconsciously through over-use, under-use or mis-use. Depending on how long the tension has been present muscles can stubbornly hold onto tension – even when trying to stretch them out. Because manually stretching a muscle may only affect the joints and muscles above and below the affected tight muscle fibres themselves.
Deep Tissue or Sports Massage can help by focusing directly on the tight muscle fibres causing neck and shoulder pain. Our therapists have years of experience in resolving this problem. If the above neck and shoulder stretches are not helping why not book an appointment to have the issue addressed?
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