We started seeing a lot of people having neck pains because of the increase in number of people that are working from home. And let’s face it when we work from home, we don’t really have a good set up. Forget about ergonomics when it comes to working from home. Most of the time, at least with most of my patients actually, including myself, we’re just lucky or happy that we get something, a space at home that we can work with. I have 5 great exercises for people who sit a lot without getting up to help prevent you from having neck pain. And if you are having neck pain can help relieve those pains pretty quickly.
This routine doesn’t take too long too, and this is a routine that I personally do. Let’s say when I’ve been typing, I usually set a limit, 15 minutes to 30 minutes tops. I try to take a break and I do this sequence.
When you’re typing or when you’re writing, for a lot of us, we’re slouching, right? So first is, you want to sit straight. You want to straighten yourself up. So these are the exercises that I do:
- I squeeze my shoulder blades together and open up the chest. Squeeze it for how long? You can hold for 5 to 10 seconds. Imagine you have a penny between your shoulder blades and you’re squeezing it as tight as you can.
- After that, what I do is I raise my shoulders up and I kind of roll it back and I squeeze there and I actually extend my neck a little bit. And sometimes I go side to side, gently squeezing the upper traps there. I hold that for 5 to 10 seconds also.
- Then I bring my hands behind my head. I open up, bring my elbows out as much as I can and I extend, if you have a backrest, you can do the same thing. Just extend out, stretch your mid back and your chest and hold it around 10 seconds.
- Then you can and do a neck stretch for the upper traps by tilting your head to one side and pulling it a little more with your hand. You can hold that for 5 to 10 seconds.
- And the last one is you can do a similar stretch but this time in the diagonal direction. This is what I call the smell your armpits stretch. Hold each side around 5 to 10 seconds.
And then after that, I just shake it off. And I feel a lot lighter after I do this sequence.
So I want you to try these 5 great exercises for people who sit a lot without getting up and see how you feel. Very quick, 5 to 10 seconds each one. So in total, it will just take you a minute or even under a minute. And it will help get that blood flow into the neck area. Get rid of that lactic acid buildup, help prevent getting those knots there, help prevent those spasms and definitely help prevent getting those stubborn and very annoying neck pains.
All right, I want you to try this and see if it works for you. Share this with everyone you know, because like I mentioned, a lot of people working are from home, and we see this a lot in the clinic.
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All right. And I would love to hear what you think. Leave your comments below. I’ll see you in the next blog.
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