The Various Neck Rehab Exercises

By Essie Osborn


Having a constant neck pain can be very stressing even preventing one from doing his normal chores. When the pain is severe and does not go away, a person should seek medical help. More often than not, an individual will be placed into a rehabilitation program for the neck to present it from coming back again.

A rehabilitation program entails various treatment approaches for the neck pain. An individual will first be required to use medication and rest depending on the severity of the pain and then enough rest to reduce pain. After this, fitness programs comprising of neck rehab exercises and lessons on posture will be utilized to prevent the pain from coming back again.

The rehabilitation process may take a few weeks to several months depending on severity of the problem. Persons should not worry in case they have a slow rehab process as it is proven that a gradual process lessens the healing time also prevents chances of re injury. Once this process is over, a person will be armed with knowledge that will be useful in preventing re occurrence of the problem again.

Most of the activities involve stretching and strengthening of the muscles. As mentioned above the purpose of these exercises is to reduce the pain. They do this by increasing the blood flow to the neck muscles, prevent further stress to neck muscles through building stamina and also spasm reduction through stretching activities for the muscles. Below are examples of these exercises.

A range of motion activities are the first group. Examples of these include; head roll, shoulder roll, neck extension and flexion. The head roll is done by placing the arms to the side and letting the head roll side to side in a semi circle manner five to ten times. During the shoulder roll, an individual relaxes his arms with the head at an upright posture. The individual then lifts and rolls his shoulders in circular motion in a repeated manner also five to ten times.

When it comes to the extension activity, one has his chin pointing upwards to the ceiling and down repeatedly, a number of times. The flexion process is the opposite of extension as one will be having his chin pointing downwards towards his chest. This is repeated 10 times after which one takes breaks and then continues with the repetition. As for the chin tuck, an individual stares straight forward and uses the fingertips to push the head back and forth repeatedly.

The stretch exercises are the other type. Example is the upper trapezius stretch which targets the trapezius muscle that connects the shoulder to the head. This one involves an individual sitting in an upright posture with right arm behind the back. The left arm is then used to gently tilt the right side of the head to the left. One should hold the stretch for 15 to 30seconds and repeat this exercise with the other side 3 times.

Other examples include scalene stretch, head curls, and also there are hands and knees extensions. All these activities stretch the muscles and in the long run strengthening them. Even after recovering from the pain, an individual should engage in safe aerobic activities that stretch and strengthen neck muscles awhile ensuring one stays fit.




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