How To Correct Your Posture And Eliminate Pain In Your Back & Neck!

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Hello and welcome to another episode of Double Doc Talk. I’m Doctor Ben Boudreaux. And I’m Doctor Clayton Roach. Today we’re talking about the mighty hump on the back of the neck. Now we see a lot of patients coming in, and to a certain degree, it started to affect people’s confidence. Right. And how they they see themselves. We’re starting to see it in the younger population as well. But definitely, you know, the reason that that’s happening and it can be worked on and it can definitely be improved is because of posture and the things that we do on a regular basis. So maybe we can talk about. Right. So what causes that.

Working at a computer desk, you know, working from home now people are at their houses. They’re spending less time in the office, more time at home. Maybe that means less of work ergonomics. Yeah, absolutely. Less of a functional workspace. Maybe they’re sitting at home and on the couch a lot more. Maybe they’re enjoying watching more movies at home. Right. So there are definitely a few different things.

I mean, the breakfast nook has become, you know, the desk in today’s culture. Now, one of the things, too, is also how you’re sitting. You know, some people, you know, sit with their knees up or their legs tucked underneath them, but definitely, you know, sitting is is seen a lot more in the workspace. We’re moving less and we’re starting to see it with kids too, right. What we’re going to talk about today is, you know, the curve in the neck and how we can help this, but we’re starting to see it with young kids where we’re seeing no curve in kids neck as early as ten, eleven years old.

Yeah. And we’re seeing this because of the technology age that we are heading into. They talk about text neck. Right. So from texting looking down for most of the day, and we all know that kids are getting cell phones younger and younger, and they have more devices now that they can use to connect with their friends or maybe do work at home.

And listen, you know, in all reality, the body is going to get good at the positions you’re in the most. It doesn’t mean that it’s a good position, but if you’re sitting, uh, eight hours a day, it’s going to get good at sitting. So the muscles that you need in order to sit and be where you’re at, they’re the ones going to be in be news. They’re the ones that are going to, you know, have a memory created so that when you try to get out of it, it’s going to be even harder, right?

And speaking of memory, right. We talk about the deep neck flexors. These are the muscles that are supposed to hold your head neck in that proper postural position. The more that the head goes forward, the more that these deep neck flexors actually turn off. And they’re supposed to tell your head and neck, hey, where are we in space? Yeah. The more they go forward, the less you know where you are.

So when we look at somebody, when we’re doing a partial analysis, we’re looking at somebody to see if their ears are over their shoulder. Many times we’re going to see the head sticking out forward and with no curve in the neck eventually comes no curve in the mid back. And all of a sudden you have that deposit of fatty tissue which becomes a dowager’s hump, or the hump that people see on the back of their neck. So enough about what causes it. What’s the solution?

What can we do about it? Right. So today we’ll be going over a few exercises and you guys can follow along. That will help decrease the amount of tension that you’re experiencing through your mid-back, as well as avoid the occurrence of that dowager or mid-back hump.

Yeah. So if you’re staying till the end of the video, we’re going to show you four stretches that you can easily do throughout your day to get rid of that hump. So first one so we’ll.

Start with the first stretch. Yes. The YTW. So basically what you’re going to do is you’re going to bring your arms out all the way up, and you’re going to hold that position for 30s. So we call this the Y right. So the y position, you’re going to make sure that you’re extending as far up as you can focus on your neck being retracted so that the ears are over. You’re going to hold that position for 30 seconds. That is the Y. And I can feel it.

I can feel it. Yeah. So the y t so here’s the T right. So Ben’s going to come down. We’re going to form a T and you’re going to bring the arms back. So we’re going to get that stretch going on in through here. And we’re going to contract the muscles in between the shoulder blades. Okay. So this is the T again you’re going to pause for 30 seconds. There’s going to be a theme here, 30 seconds. So here’s the T the W right. So now you’re going to bring the arms down. And what you’re doing here is you’re focusing on what’s called the lower trapezius muscles. These are the ones that are shut off because you’re sitting all the time.

And what I’ll do is I’ll maybe I’ll just turn around so you guys can see what we’re what we’re talking about here. So we’re going from our Y to our T into our W, where we’re contracting the lower muscles here. Shoulder blades together.

At the back. Yeah. So now we can turn around again. And we’re going to bring the elbows straight out to the side. And we’re going to externally rotate. Right. So really force your arms to go outwards again lengthening the pec muscles which are always shortening at the desk or when you’re sitting. And again contracting the muscles on the back. So 30 seconds times for position I recommend you do this once an hour if you can, but at the very least, at least once a shift like in the morning or in the in the afternoon and before you go to bed.

Exactly. Especially if you know that you’re going to be working at a desk or forward perch for an extended period of time. The second exercise that we have here, I’ll show it from the side. It’s much easier to visualize. So if the head has gone forward we want to promote the opposite movement. So we take the arms, bring them behind the back.

Grasp the wrist. Grasp the wrist, squeeze the shoulder blades together, bring the chest forward and arch the head back.

So this is going to be in two parts. You’re going to do 15 seconds as you let your breath out. As the head goes back, you’re exhaling. You can breathe in again obviously, cause you won’t able to hold your breath for 15 seconds. You come back in the neutral position and you set it back. Go back into that extension position for another 15 seconds. Right.

I can really feel the stretch in through the front and through the pec area. Also take note of the expiration. Right. So breathing in and out, you want to let your neck muscles relax into that extended position. A lot of you may find this really hard to do. It’s okay. You don’t have to go as far back as 60 degrees like what I’m doing here. If you can only make it as far as 40 degrees, that’s great. That’s what your structure can handle for this.

And the key is to do opposite of what you’re doing all day right into extension. The next one we’re going to do next to this wall here. So you’re going to bring the arm up on the wall again. Some of you might have some shoulder issues that you have to be careful about so you can step back or come up as far as you can. The arm goes up on the wall and what you’re going to do into a 45 degree angle, because that’s the angle of the facet joints in the neck. You’re going to bring your head back this way and exhale for about and breathe in and out, but exhale for about 15 seconds.

And what we’re noticing here. And if we bring the head forward this is what you should feel. So as the head comes back we should feel the mid-back push forward okay. Head is back forward and mid back slides ahead as the head comes back.

And then you’re going to switch it up on the opposite side. Okay. So these are three of the exercises you can do to mitigate the risk of you having a neck hump. And if you already have it to help chop away at it.

The fourth fourth size. So we’re going to be at this desk over here. Um, you want the desk to be somewhat at shoulder height. Okay. So you can do it standing. We’re going to show it here on this desk being where we’re going to sit down, you’re going to place both elbows on the desk like this. And what you’re going to do is you’re going to bring your head down past the desk. So basically what you’re doing is you’re creating extension right here where this is forward, where the hump is, where your head is forward by virtue of getting your shoulders up here. It’s almost like if I was standing, I’m going like this, but I’m doing it in a somewhat more comfortable position like so now you’re going to rest there for 30 seconds.

Yes. Because as you’re doing this, the chest is going to drop and the mid-back is also going to drop. You should feel those mid-back segments translate forward. Again, if you have a bad dowager’s hump and it is really stiff, you may not notice this at first, but I guarantee if you sit into that position and you hold it for 30 seconds, you will start to feel that shift and some of you may hear clicks, some of you may hear pops. This is just virtue of that joint finally becoming lubricated.

And you may feel the chisel right of that hump going away. And again, you know those four exercises you can do a combination of, listen, there’s no scientific research to say that you got to do this one for this many times. The key is building a pattern and being persistent with them and consistent and doing them throughout your day.

So this has been another great episode of Double Doc Talk. I hope you guys enjoyed it. Please follow us on YouTube or subscribe to us on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter for more double top double doc talks in the future. So thank you guys so much. I’m Doctor Ben Boudreaux. And I’m Doctor Clayton Roach. We’ll see you next time.