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Neck Pain Relief Exercises

When I was a little kid I had some neck issues.

One morning before kindergarten I woke up, ate my breakfast, and got dressed.

My dad slipped my shirt over my head then…BAM!

Suddenly I couldn’t move my head and if I tried I had extreme neck pain.

Luckily as the day went on my muscles loosened up and I was able to move my head and neck again.

As an adult if this happens it’s usually a little bit of a different story regarding recovery. Kids seem to bounce back from things relatively quickly while it takes us adults a bit longer.

Even if you’ve had something similar to this happen or if you’re someone who always has chronic neck pain there are a few things you can do to help. One of the things is going to a massage therapist. They will be able to help loosen up the muscles and make things feel great! The problem is that sometimes that doesn’t last the longest. Acupuncture is another thing you can do to help this type of pain but some people are skeptical of this or deathly afraid of needles.

Something as simple as specific neck stretches and exercises can do wonders for neck pain…and the best part is that they can be done at home!

Scalene Stretch

Your scalene muscles are a muscle group that attaches to the side of your head and your collarbone region. They are responsible for us being able to tilt our heads. So if you ever see someone who has a head tilt one way or the other it’s often due to tight scalenes on one side and deactivated scalenes on the other. With the scalenes there is an anterior (front), middle, and posterior (back) to the group of muscles. You are able to stretch all of these with separate stretches.

All 3 of these stretches include you tilting your head to one side of the body. To stretch the middle scalene, gently pull/tilt your head so your ear is going towards your shoulder and you’ll feel a stretch on the side of your neck opposite of your tilting direction. To stretch the anterior scalene do the same movement but look up and away, for the posterior stretch look down and away, as you can see me doing in the photo.

*These stretches can also stretches your Trapezius Muscles as well!

Levator Scapulae Stretch

The levator scapulae is a muscle that attaches to the back/side of the neck. It has attachments at the transverse processes of C1-C4 (side of the vertebrae) along with the top of the scapula. This can cause pain more in the back side of your neck.

To stretch this muscle bring your arm up and place your hand on the back of your shoulder blade so your elbow is pointing upward towards the ceiling. Take your other hand over your head and place it on the back of your head. Gently pull your head down at about a 45 degree angle, like you are pulling it towards your opposite knee until you feel a stretch.

(Double) Chin Tucks

This is a really simple exercise that will help strengthen a lot of your neck muscles. What’s great is it will also decrease the chances of you having a hump on the back of your neck, or if you already have one it will potentially get rid of it or stop it from getting bigger.

You can do this exercise while driving in your car which makes it a no brainer. In a seated position, make sure you’re sitting tall, face forward, and tuck/bring your chin back with the rest of your head. You can do this for a total of 10-15 times. By my photo you should be able to figure out how this works…no need to over do it!

All in all you’ll be able to feel some of your muscles stretching along with some of your muscles really contracting and working hard to bring your head and neck back into its normal position. That’s what’s crazy…a lot of times it feels like we’re really pulling our heads back but usually we’re bringing our head into the position it’s supposed to be. From years of our heads being hunched forward we aren’t used to this normal anatomical position.

Honorable Mentions

Something that a lot of people don’t do enough of is lying flat on their back. You can do this on a carpeted floor and put a rolled up towel or a cervical pillow under your neck. This is going to stretch a lot of the muscles in your neck along with giving them some time to rest and relax from holding your head up all day. When you do this make sure to stay off your phone as that is going to impact how you’re resting your head and neck.

This video below also shows a great stretch that reduces that neck hump along with engaging a lot of the muscles in the front of your neck and back of your neck. It’s really simple to do at home and if you can do it once a day you’ll be in a better spot than where you are right now!

This is just the Start

This is just the beginning when it comes to stretches and exercises for neck pain relief. There are tons and tons of other stretches and exercises out there but these are a few that I recommend to my clients. For more, in depth stretches someone like a functional movement personal trainer can give you a ton of ideas or an independent physical therapist. If you have any questions regarding the stretches and exercises listed above feel free to reach out. I hope they help you and if you feel like what you have going on is more extreme than just some stretches to help out give us a call, would love to see if we could help you out!