Neck Physical Therapy

Series Summary

The neck is the top column of a vertebrate’s spine that connects the head and the torso. In the human neck, the spinal chord is made up of seven bony segments. These bones are surrounded by tendons, nerves, glands, cartilage, arteries, muscles and veins. Neck pain is common because of the function, range and complexity of its structure. Common injuries include whiplash, herniated discs, spinal stenosis, osteoarthritis, and vascular pain. Treating these injuries can be done surgically or alternatively. Either way, physical therapy is a wonderful way to build strength and improve the range of motion as well as deal with pain.

In this series of expert videos, you will learn about physical therapy for the neck and spine. Relieve tension with the simple rolling of the neck and shoulders. Get tips on valuable stretches of the muscles of the neck and shoulders. Tone your shoulder and neck muscles by squeezing them. Watch as our physical therapist demonstrates trapezius exercises and scalene muscle stretches. Perform such easy stretches as a 45 degree angle stretch and other neck and shoulder stretches while sitting at your desk. Promote relaxation with these stretches and improve your posture and range of motion.

Video Transcript

"Hi I'm Monica and we are going to be going over some neck exercise and we be going through some range of motions, some stretching and some strengthening exercises to help well not only the neck but we are also going to talk a little bit of the upper shoulders and right in between your shoulder blades. A lot of the not only neck but upper shoulders muscles are involved in posture and a lot of the people have this hunch over position where there head would be forward and there shoulders where rounded, and there spine is nice and rounded as well and we want you to stand up nice and tall shoulders back, head back. So I'm going to show you guys some exercises that again mainly focus on the neck and stretching out the neck but also a few exercises and strengthening exercises and some basically some range of motion exercise that are going to be getting shoulder area just kind of opening up the shoulder. Opening up this whole area right here as well into the neck. So the first thing we are going to start covering would be the range of motion stuff and then we would progress to stretching and then we would progress to strengthening after that."