Simple Stretches for Neck Pain Relief in Portland, ME

Hi, I'm Dr. Rob Liguori, and this is Austin. We're here with Chiropractic & Sports Health, to talk to you more about some neck pain issues, and specifically some stretches that we like to do to help people alleviate some of that neck pain.

Targeting Specific Muscles for Neck Pain Relief

Neck Pain is a really common issue that we see here. And so some of these stretches are really common ones that we'll teach, because a lot of your pain that you get can really come from the muscles that are around the neck, primarily two muscles, called the upper trapezius, and Levator scap. So I'm going to show you each of those stretches here today, with my model here, Austin, and we're going to go through them here now. So come on in and close, let me show you a couple of spots.

The Upper Trapezius Muscle Stretch

So the upper trap is the big muscle that kind of fans out through here. And so this muscle is the one we are going stretch first. So I have him here seated, I always give the cue to sit nice and tall, what he's gonna do is he's gonna tilt his head away from this side. So if you're trying to stretch the left, tilt the head to the right, and then he's gonna bring it a little bit forward and never do out wants to do actually is tilt his head a little bit in that direction, almost like he's looking over his left knee. From that position, he can then take his right hand right up to his head, hold there and just apply a little extra pressure down. If he's doing it right, he should feel the stretch come right out through this area here. If you wanted to enhance that stretch even more, I'd actually have him sit on his left hand, what that would do go and sit down in there, what that'll do is that'll actually anchor his shoulder down, so that doesn't kind of rise up. So as he pulls this way, that'll stay in place. So that's the upper trap stretch.

Stretching Exercise For The Levator Scapula Muscle

The second word to do is the levator scap, it actually looks pretty similar because it lives right in the same region. But there's some little changes you're going to make to get that stretch. So come on right around here. What he's going to do now, same thing, let's say we're stretching that left side, tilting his head again to the right, coming forward as well. But the one difference you can make, is last time I had them turn this way. This time, he's going to turn away and then bring your right hand up there, Austin, and then he's going to pull it straight down this direction. And again, if he's doing this right, instead of feeling that stretch out here, he should feel that much closer to his spine up in this direction, right out above the the inside of that shoulder blade.

So again, hold that stretch for about 30 seconds for each one to help get that muscle to loosen up and hopefully help alleviate some of that pain.

Learn more about Chiropractic Care and Neck Pain.