The Stretching Habit
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Stretch Progression Standing Neck

We carry most of our stress in our neck muscles. These muscles play an important part in our physiology helping to protect our head and brain. This series will help relieve the tension that builds up throughout the day, keeping your neck relaxed.

Stretching Application

Stretching is for everyone. Not everyone is an athlete but everyone needs to stretch. The most important thing to understand is that athletes and people who just want to stretch to feel better need to stretch differently. Think of it this way, athletic stretching is just complex or advanced stretching and not everyone needs or can benefit from this type of stretching. Start with simple stretches and work your way towards the more complicated stretching. Just remember that we all need to stretch!

Health Focused Application

If you deal with stress or anxiety or if you have a physical job requiring a lot of upper body movement, or if you simply feel stress or pain in your neck, you need to know how to stretch your neck properly. There are 4 basic movements that we are going to walk you through to relieve that stress!

Athletic / Fitness Application

No matter what sport you do, your neck is under a lot of pressure. With any explosive movement required from the body, your neck will tense up to hold your head in place once that happens. Your knees will bend, your hips will lower and your neck will prepare to not leave your head behind!

Science and Medical Connection

The sternocleidomastoid (SCM), levator and scalene muscles are just a few of your neck muscles. The stressors of the digital age is putting and overwhelming amount of pressure on our bodies and minds creating tension throughout our neck muscles leading to pain.

Scientific Persecptive of the Neck

There is the anatomical structure of the neck that is the highway for trillions of signals between your body and brain every day. But tight muscles can change that structure and impinge or impede that flow of information. Pain is a signal that your nerve flow is disrupted.

Medical Perspective of the Neck

Tight muscles create stiffness and pain in your neck, head and shoulders. Weak muscles allow the head to fall forward and shoulders to round forward as well. All of this creates pains that can start at your head and neck but end up pulling all the way into low back pain.

Scientifically Speaking

There is something called the “Fight or Flight” stress response system that is built into our biobehavioral DNA. Your subconscious mind sends signals to the shoulders and neck to tense and prepare to fight or flight! Your scalenes and levator specifically tense and shorten. When your conscious feels this physical tension in your neck muscles you now feel like you have a problem, but it’s just your bodies response to stress, you just need to stretch your neck out in response!

Medically Speaking

When your mind is dealing with stress it sets off a bioelectrochemical chain reaction preparing your body for Fight or Flight. In today’s society; our homework, jobs, toxic relationships and environments are setting our bodies in motion to run, but we aren’t so now all of those energies, chemicals and hormones are circulating around in your bloodstream because they are not getting burned off. Now your conscious mind feels all of this “nervous energy” and is perceived as “anxiety” and panic attacks.

Stretch Instructions

The Healthy Progression of a Stretch is the Same as the Medical Rehabilitation of a Muscle

Stretching For Your Health

There is a healthy progression for every muscle from beginner to advanced. Because we deal with stress everyday, stretching is most effective when you do them everyday. Below is a comprehensive list for the healthy progression of stretches. Start with the basic versions and work your way slowly to the advanced.

Athletic Stretching

Overtraining and over stretching causes injuries more than the competition itself. When it comes to stretching, listen to what your muscles are telling you. If they are overworked or too tired, they will not be able to give you as much length as yesterday. Be in the moment, present and methodical as you go through the progressions below.

Simply rotating your head to look over your shoulders to either side to start. Keep your head upright and think of keeping your spine upright. Think of trying to have your chin pass right over your shoulders. This is the most basic movement of the neck performed by a muscle that is the most difficult to say.

This is a dynamic stretch that works all of the upper trapezius fibers that connect your shoulders to your head. Start with a head tilt to the left and slowly roll your chin down to you sternum and then tilt your right ear to your right shoulder as you come up across to a head tilt to the right. Go back and forth slowly several times until your neck feels better. Our videos really walk you through these better than pics and descriptions but see if that works for now. Head Rolls really target the levator scapula which is one of the most triggered muscles of the body. It’s so important we cover it on its own page here.

This muscle group is probably one of the least understood or known about muscles of the body but they are super important to your health and wellbeing.

One of the scalene’s functions is to lift the ribs and allow the lungs to fill more fully. The problem is that stress and anxiety trigger these muscles to shorten which creates noticeable tension consequently perpetuating ones anxiety. These tense muscles are a major contributing factor for the shallow quick breaths people experience when dealing with stress and anxiety.

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