Stretches for Head, Neck and Shoulders

These stretches can either be done as a complete series or individually and most of them can be done at your desk. Some will ease tension in specific parts of the body whilst others are generally relaxing. Please remember stretching should always be relaxing and never painful!

To get maximum benefit from these stretches you should do them daily and hold each stretch for 15 seconds and repeat twice.

Head And Neck

Head rotation – keeping your head level, slowly turn from side to side.
Slowly drop your head sideways moving your right ear towards your right shoulder and push down with your left shoulder – repeat on other side.
Stand with your feet shoulder distance apart; look down towards your right foot (hold for 15 seconds), dropping left shoulder – repeat the exercise looking towards your left foot.
Drop the lower jaw and open the mouth wide.

Shoulders

Shrugging shoulders in a circular movement – forwards and then backwards.
Raise your shoulders high and let them drap heavily; whilst letting breathing out.
Clasp hands behind your head, with elbows back – push your chin back. Hold for 15 seconds. From this position look down and push your elbows together at the front and hold for a further 15 seconds.
Clasp you hands and push up towards the ceiling, palms up now look down.
Sit upright in a chair with a firm seat. Raise your arms as high as possible and remaining seated drop forward letting your head and arms hang heavily towards the floor.

What is good standing posture?
We all know we need to maintain good posture, but what exactly is good standing posture? Good standing posture When standing, keep these tips in mind:

Keep your shoulders back and relaxed.

Pull in your abdomen.

Keep your feet about hip distance apart.

Balance your weight evenly on both feet.

Let your hands hang naturally at your sides.

Try not to tilt your head forward, backward or sideways, and make sure your knees are relaxed — not locked.
Take the wall test
To test your standing posture, take the wall test. Stand with your head, shoulder blades and buttocks touching a wall, and have your heels about 2 to 4 inches (about 5 to 10 centimeters) away from the wall. Reach back and slide your hand behind the curve in your lower back, with your palm flat against the wall. Ideally, you'll feel about one hand's thickness of space between your back and the wall. If there's too much space, tighten your abdominal muscles to flatten the curve in your back. If there's too little space, arch your back so that your hand fits comfortably behind you. Walk away from the wall while maintaining this posture. Keep it up throughout your daily activities.
Check out your reflection
To see if you're keeping your shoulders straight, stand in front of a mirror. Aim to keep your shoulders square and relaxed.
It all adds up
Although good posture should be natural, you might feel wooden or stiff at first if you've forgotten the sensation of standing up straight. The key is to practice good posture all the time. Remember its never to late to start practicing good posture.
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Massage for Runners … its all about optimising recovery
We are introducing a new service: Runners Massage a special service to assist runners to optimise their recovery the massage will

flush out all the waste products in the tired muscles

address micro tears in the muscles

which rejuvenates the tired heavy muscles making them feel light. The goal for runners is to first and foremost prevent the kind of wear and tear that comes with putting physical demands on your body. Yes; running is fantastic and ultimately good for your overall health, but if you are going to push your body to its limits you must prepare it and maintain it to avoid potential injury. With strenuous running, your muscles can lose their ability to relax and they become shorter and tighter. Chronically tight muscles will lose their flexibility and that is really asking for trouble, as it makes you so much more susceptible to injury. If your muscles lose flexibility, they can easily pull or tear, and tight muscles become very sore. Blood flow is poor through tightened muscles (ischemia) and that also cause pain. Massage stretches the muscles in a much more specific way than stretching after a run, to regain lost flexibility. Click here to book your runners massage
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Elbow Pain
Recently we have treated a few cases of elbow pain. There are two common site for elbow pain, the outside edge of the elbow which is often an indication of tennis elbow or lateral epicondylitis and the inside edge of the elbow which is often an indication of glofer's elbow or medial epicondylitis. With both of these conditions the pain may radiate up the arm and / or down along the forearm. Both conditions can be caused by precise wrist movements from using a mouse or keyboard. As the name suggests tennis elbow can be caused by faulty backhand technique when playing tennis. While golfer's elbow can be caused by poor technique when playing Golf or faulty forehand technique when playing tennis. In addition tennis elbow can be caused by carrying heavy shopping bags as it causes tension in the wrist extensors. Most of the cases we see are caused by long hours using computers. The first thing we do is try and establish the cause of the pain, which can be tightness or spasm in the muscles of the forearm, neck or shoulders and then treat accordingly. We can also show you simple stretches to stretch out the muscles of the forearm. What surprised us, and prompted me to write this blog is that they all the clients had just assumed that elbow pain was something that they just had to lived with. In all the cases we dramatically reduced the pain and in most cases after a few treatments the clients were pain free! So don't sit their in pain, book a massage.
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