The 4 best tricks and exercises for neck pain and shoulder pain

“Last night I slept funny.”
”My workout with the dumb-bells didn’t feel great this morning.”
”I’ve done so much overtime in the office in the past few weeks.”

These are typical examples of what people say when they come to the clinic because of neck pain. It can happen to any of us.

Neck pain can have a million characteristics (it can be called wry neck in some cases), but for now here are four videos showing really easy exercises you can do for yourself on your way to work, safely as you drive your kids to school or actually at your workplace while you’re taking a break.

1. Tuck your chin in

This exercise will allow the muscles deep inside your neck to activate, while relaxing and extending the back of your neck; in fact one of the triggers of headaches can be our neck, so reducing its stress and tension might help improve the pain.

This exercise is usually useful for initial stages of wry neck, sudden headaches and general neck tightness related to sedentary work.

Pull your chin towards your throat, while looking straight ahead and keeping your spine and head nice and tall. You might feel a stretch and the back of your neck or the headache reduce momentarily. Keep the position for four or five seconds, but don’t make it too uncomfortable. You can push yourself to do 10 repetitions up to 10 seconds.

2. Shoulder blades retraction.

Our posture tends to change if we’re uncomfortable, especially because of neck pain or wry neck. If the muscles of our neck are tight and sore, they’ll also get tired more quickly. As it gets tired during the course of the working day, our body will find different ways to cope and to make its job easier, and slouching forward with our shoulders is one of hte most common consequences.

Training your back muscles (they’re specifically called Rhomboids) to pull your shoulder blades together is an easy and effective way to give more support to your neck and relieve the load from the neck muscles. Simply pull your shoulder blades together and keep the position up to 10 seconds. Try to repeat this action up to 20 times in a row - if you do less it’s still fine, it’ll just take longer to make thoe muscles stronger. If you reach 10 or more, you’ll almost feel a bit taller as you keep going with your day.

3. Neck lateral stretches

This is a very easy way to stretch the muscles of your neck and give instant relief to your neck. The feeling of tightness and stiffness - especially as you move - can be a sign of hyperactivity of your muscles, so getting them to lengthen and relax will help temporarily. Pull gently on your neck as shown in the video, and keep the position for around one minute (2 repetitions of 30 seconds or 3 repetitions of 20 seconds, if uncomfortable).

4. Find this point on your hand and push on it!

Well the other day I woke up with a sore neck from sleeping funny - there was nothing funny about it though! So I ran to Karen asking for some wisdom and some relief .

Turns out that the point Luozhen (which translated from Chinese means "Falling off a pillow" - hilarious) can help with anything neck related, such as sore and stiff necks and whiplash.

You can find this point moving just slightly down with your finger between the second and third knuckle, as shown in the video. Push on it and give a massage making little circles!

Don’t forget, we’re here to help you

If you still feel like this is helping just a little bit, it might be time to book yourself in for an assessment and treatment to figure out what can work best for you with one of our physiotherapists.

*NB the above recommended exercises and strategies are loose guidelines. For specific neck and shoulder pain and discomfort, ensure you consult with your registered therapist to make sure these are tailored for you.