“Neck and Shoulder Stretches for Tension Relief” Transcript

Hi, I’m Cassy. Welcome to Quick Fit, a gentle and zero-impact stretching and strengthening class. In my experience, the neck and shoulders are the source of so many problems. Today, we will discover new stretches and exercises that can alleviate pain and allow you to move much more freely. Let’s get going.

[gentle music]

In today’s class, we’ll perform the entire class standing. But, of course, if you need to have a chair nearby to sit down at some point, feel free. Let’s do really deep breathing today, nice deep belly breaths, and then, extra-long exhales. Do your best to keep everything relaxed as we move through these movements. Okay, so a nice slow pace, let’s just lift those shoulders up and down. Good, a few shoulder rolls. Good. Now your right shoulder up, and then you can just let your head look. [exhales] Let’s do that again. Roll that shoulder up. Inhale, exhale, and just let your chin and head be heavy. Other side, so left shoulder up. Inhale, exhale, and let the head fall. One more time. Breathe it in, and exhale. Feels so good! I can hear things crunching and loosening up. Let’s lift the chin and reach down with two hands, long. Think about your thumbs and roll them back. [inhales, exhales]

And now, let’s reach up and put your fingers back behind the head to support it so you can really stretch. And don’t forget to breathe. Real nice, all right, let’s drop the arms. Now, go ahead and look down at the floor. Good. And then, we’ll reach up, big inhale, and as you exhale, just let the weight of your hand pull gently and just slightly on the back of your head. All right, now we’ll do the opposite. We’re gonna lift the head up into your fingers. And relax. I’m only about 50% strength. You don’t have to force the head up into the hand. All right? So now, let’s look down the other way. Just enjoy this stretch right here, through the back of your neck. Go ahead and lift this shoulder. So, if you’re mirroring me, you’re looking down at your right and you’re lifting this left shoulder. Just enjoy this for a moment. Inhale, exhale, and then you can relax that shoulder, and we’ll reach up behind the head and just a little bit of pressure to gently stretch down through the back of the neck there. Pause. Let’s inhale. I’ll have you do that again, just a little nice gentle stretch. All right.

Now, we’ll lift the head up, 50% of the neck’s strength, up into the fingers, fingers are resisting. Real good. All right, let’s just look up. Just relax here for a moment. Just do a little bit of swimmer shoulders. So, just a roll them back a little bit. All right, so go ahead and face your left. All right. Nice tall spine, by the way. Try to put your chin in line with your shoulders, and make sure your head and neck are up over your body. They’re not on the front of your body. You’re sitting nice and tall, and let’s go ahead and do three slow nods. Inhale, exhale. One more. Nice big inhale, exhale, and then we’ll bring the chin up to neutral, but we’re still looking over our shoulder, and then extend your right arm nice and big. Stretch the front of that shoulder, and now, bend that wrist. You should be able to feel that all the way into your fingertips and up your arm. All right, let’s relax that. Go ahead and move as slowly as you need to move, okay. Just a little release with the head, and then lift and drop that chin. Just a little release before we switch to the other side. This is your neck. Go as slow as you need to. Don’t let me rush you. Looking to the right now, a big inhale. We’ll do three nods, dropping the chin down to the shoulder, enjoying the stretch in the neck. Inhale, exhale.

I think these exercises should be done a lot. Well, what I mean by a lot is probably daily, especially if you drive and you’re not feeling as confident driving because maybe you’re not feeling good to look over your shoulders. So, these are great for improving your driving, helping you turn around in your seat and look before you change lanes. All right. Inhale, exhale. Real good, a couple more shoulder circles. Now let’s lift your hand up in front of your face, like the heel of your hand right at your forehead, all right, and press about 50% of the strength of your neck. We’re not trying to make our muscles tremble, just a little challenge. And then, relax. And then, we’ll go to the side. You ready? And press. Just enjoy this. You don’t go around doing this every day. And we’ll do the other side. Inhale, exhale.

I have many very active people in my gym. They might walk four miles a day, but you know, that’s all forward motion. You don’t go around doing all of these nice twists every day. And it’s really important to take care of every single joint every day so that you don’t lose the ability.

Now, let’s do an Apple Picker. You’ll have your hand up about forward height, and this is all going to be through the shoulder girdle. We’re going to keep the elbow straight, all right, and extend as if you’re pushing something away. Now, make sure you’re not following it with the torso. You’re like locked in. Extend, and then pull back. All right, straighten that elbow. Extend. Inhale, exhale. Pull it back, real good. Let’s do the other side, about forehead height, extend forward the shoulder, and pull it back. One more. Extend and pull back. Now, we’re going to do it with two arms. So, have your arms up and just imagine, if you’ve ever water skied and you hold on to that bar and the boat goes and it pulls your shoulders right out of the sockets, right? That’s kind of what this looks like. So, forward. And now, let’s stand up, inhale, and pinch that pencil between your shoulder blades. So let’s do that again, extend, opening up the back of your shoulder blade, it’s really nice and wide, and then pull back. This isn’t something you’re probably gonna get the very first time through. Let’s do it one more time. But that’s what’s good about online. You can repeat these often.

I hope you enjoyed these new stretches and exercises that can help you alleviate tightness around the neck and shoulders. Add them to your daily routine and you’ll find stress relief, improved range of motion, and definitely less pain.

Don’t forget to find more gentle and effective exercises just like these online at pbswisconsin.org/quickfit. See you next time.