Shoulder and Neck Support

Hi. I'm Ashley Hoffman, and in this tutorial, we'll be talking about clients to experience neck pain, stiffness, tight shoulders. Katie's gonna be helping me out today. A lot of times when clients come in with neck pain, there's a number of different causes. Primarily, a lot of times it's tight pecs pulling you forward, then the back muscles that rhomboids are over stretched and not strong enough, as well as weakness in the neck. A lot of times we think tightness.

We need to stretch it. When in fact strengthening is what's gonna bring us out of pain. So when your client comes in with the oh, my neck is in so much pain or oh, my upper back hurts. These are some exercises to help and adaptations to help address how we can bring them out of pain and help them feel confident. We'll start today with some foam rolling. So Katie's gonna lie on her left side.

I'm placing the foam roller under her left rib cage right under the armpit. She can either have her head propped into her hand or arm long by her side and then head on to her arm, but this is a little bit of the first place to go and then an advanced it would be if she can really stretch that neck. She's just moving forward and back, rolling into these muscles, the lat, all these muscles that connect underneath our arm that tend to be really tight. And if we open those up, then we can get a little more access to lifting the shoulder heads up and back, loosening those pecs and strengthening through the back and neck. So a minimum of like thirty seconds that we can just let her be here. She can go a little backwards too on it using her right hand to guide.

And also just if it's so intense, just holding and breathing, really trying to expand the rib cage in two directions as she breathes into it. Great. About one more moment here just so she really feels She's creating space and length unsticking that arm, that underarm so she can extend through her arm. She'll come to the other side. So rolling towards me.

We wanna make sure it's not right on the armpit, a little under. She's gonna go up a little bit more and yes. Perfect. And this side she'll let her head rest on her arm, which again is a bigger stretch. And she's going forward and back many people don't have that range of motion. So you just check-in with your client and again, they can absolutely support their head in their hand.

This can also be done with a small ball if the rollers too elevated. So just a little massage ball underneath into that spot, I call it the root of all evil because it's so tender and tight in there that sometimes all we can do is just hold and breathe and create some space that way. Excellent. So now that we've unstuck the arm a little bit, we're gonna open the pecs. So I'll take the foam roller.

She's lying on her back, knees, bent, feet together, and I'm gonna hand her some weights. I have five pounds. Any level of small weight, and you can always build up. So she's holding the weights over. You got them. Over her chest. And all she's doing is opening for a fly.

And closing back to fists over her shoulders. So she's opening wide, breathing in, and closing. She has like a tiny little bend in her elbow just so she's not locked into the joint. And she's going to the range of motion where she feels in control and that she can come back to the top safely. So with these exercises and somebody with a really tight upper back and neck, you're just checking in and making sure that they're not moving in a range of motion that causes any pain or exacerbates any of the issues that they're dealing with. So we'll go for five or ten five to 10 of these, and we're extending opening right there. Hold for a moment. Breathes.

She's opening her pecs, opening her biceps, and then using them in that eccentric contraction two more times. Please. And she'll do one more, and then I'll take the weights from you. If it's too heavy and the range of motion is too small, start with a two pound, a three pound, but we wanna find that eccentric contraction, that length while the muscle is working. And then if this is like too easy, She can always do this up on a foam roller. So either on the ground or up on the mat, she would lie on the foam roller at the length of her spine. Then the arm can go behind the level of her body if that's available to her. Sometimes it's all about that we're too flexible We may have many clients like that as well, and that's what causes the pain.

So building the strength around the flexibility, somebody who can really easily flop their arms open, let's build the strength around that range of motion. Next, we're going to some neck lifts. So just plain old strengthening the neck. She's gonna lie on her left side with her head on her arm, knees been any comfortable position because all she's doing is lifting her ear towards her shoulder and back down. And she's finding again that range of motion where there's no pain.

If she needed something underneath between her head and her arm to create a smaller range of motion or to not lift as high, those are options too. But I believe most people can find a range of motion to do this exercise, to build strength through the side of the neck. She's gonna come to the other side and to increase that range of motion for her, she'll tuck her right arm, the side she's lying on underneath her. So again, she's bringing the shoulder or the ear up to the shoulder. Excuse me, and back down and lift five to 10 of these. So five might be enough.

You wanna really check-in. Is this painful? No. Great. Let's go just five sets the first time and building up because this is where we can increase that strength. Just a straight up neck strengthener that we think like, why would I do that? But strength creates less pain. Excellent. So now for her on her back, she's coming back to the back for the chin tuck.

So knees can just be bent and relaxed. All she's doing is lifting her chin towards her chest. She's not lifting her shoulder blades off the mat. And again, safe, no pain. Yes. We're just really working the front of the neck muscles. We think, why do we have to work those?

We're like always working them pulling forward, but we're on our phone looking forward. It's not an active strengthening exercise. It's just that position of our head going forward. Last one great job. And now we have to work at the back of the neck.

So she's gonna flip to her stomach when she's ready. Excellent. Arms can just be by her side, head, forehead to the mat, and she's just lifting her eyes, lifting her chin and looking at the wall in front of her, and lowering down. So chest is not lifting. She's really lifting lifting the eyes up, look forward more.

Yes and lower. It's neck flexion and it's focused and just in one area of the body building that strength. No pain. Great. So the advancement of this would be, again, we're gonna go to your side and coming off the mat a little bit just to show you how all of these exercises can be done right at the edge of the mat. So her head's gonna rest on her arm as her arm hooks the edge of the mat. And now she's got this even bigger stretch.

Now we're in an eccentric contraction through that right side of the neck as she brings her ear towards her shoulder and uses it in that long lever coming back down. So if this is safe, feels comfortable for your client, they're doing the other version just lying flat on the mat, totally pain free. Then we move it to a little bit more range of motion. Excellent. Thank you so much. You can come back down and come up to a kneeling position, actually. Because after we open the pecs, then we can strengthen the back, the rhomboids, the muscles between the shoulder blades. It's hard to strengthen them when we're pulled forward this way. So facing towards the tower and slide back a little bit, I'm gonna give her arms springs.

She can sit onto her heels, holding the arms springs where they're taught, but not pulled. So if she has to slide back her forward a little, that's where great starting point. Sholders are right over the hips, and then she's bending her elbows and pulling her shoulder blades together. Then she's letting them separate. How's that weight feel? You want a little more resistance or this is good?

Yeah. So just checking in like that. If she needs more, she slides back. If she needs less, she comes forward. And we're going for about 10 reps of these. Squeezing those shoulder blades.

You can really be there and be like, yes. Squeeze my thumb with your shoulder blades, and then also important to let them spread apart. We wanna find that retraction and protraction of the shoulder blades, healthy movement of the shoulder blades so that the rest can just sit on top. Head and neck can sit on top. And because we opened the pecs, she has the ability to pull the shoulder head a little up and back.

She's not gonna get stuck there. She's gonna really strengthen those upper back muscles. Excellent. So strengthening the back, strengthening the neck, strengthening the front, by opening it, and then we all sit a little bit taller. I'll take these from you, and then we'll do it into a lat pull because another great part of strengthening the back from the upper back into the mid back where we were rolling earlier.

So I'm gonna have you come around the tower and she'll sit on the floor right by the tower. Feet can be against Yeah, balls of the feet against like a 90 degree bend in her knees and I'm handing her the bar, the rollback bar, thumbs grip around it. Yeah. And she's sitting tall. She's pulling the bar towards her sternum as her shoulder blades pull down. And then she's coming back up with resistance. And when she comes up, she can really let her shoulder blades lift. That's the full flexion of the shoulder.

Let them lift up there. Yeah. We're always like shoulders down, shoulders down. But then they're only moving one way. So let the shoulder lift and then see those blades pull down and lift and drag those shoulder blades down, feel that bar right at the sternum gorgeous. So different levels to bring the bar towards your chest. If you need to be higher, fit there to build that strength to where it's a larger range of motion.

So you get that full, flexion of the shoulder. So after 10, if that went well, I'm gonna have her do some chin up version. So I've got the bar so she can switch her grip to under grip. And now we're adding a little more bicep work as she pulls the bar to her sternum. And she can even lean the slightest bit back. Yes. Now the abs are into the mix too. Correct? You feel that, bringing the bar right to the sternum shoulder blades pulled down.

And then don't forget to let them lift as the bar lifts you. Yes. We wanna move the shoulder. That's why we started with that rolling. I'm gonna take the bar and you can come up off the ground. Thank you. We want to start by opening, moving some of that tissue around, myofascial release, whether it's a ball or a foam roller.

And then we're working on strengthening around that eccentric contract. Like I said, it's this wonderful built in thing in Pilates. We're so often we're working a muscle when it's shortening and lengthening, and that lengthening really gives us the flexibility and the strength. And why not strengthen our neck since it's the thing holding our head up? Thanks so much. I hope this helps your clients.