• Breathe in
• Perform a chin tuck by bringing your chin back towards your shoulder blades
• Squeeze your shoulder blades together as if you were pinching them together
• Relax your jaw
• Use the tip of your nose to draw the figure 8
• Breathe out
• Reverse the figure 8 direction
• Now draw the infinity symbol with the tip of your nose
• Reverse the infinity symbol
• Do each direction 10 times each
• Repeat for 3 sets

These figure 8 and infinity neck exercises will help keep your neck muscles from stiffening up after a long day. Do these and other neck exercises from this blog to maintain flexibility and less neck tension. Try these new neck exercises and let me know how your day goes!

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Tonight as I was putting my 1 year-old son to bed after his
regular night time routine, I realized that we could all benefit from a night
time routine to reduce any stress from the day’s activities. Do you find that
after a busy day, your muscles in your neck feel tight, tired or stiff? Have
you ever thought about taking 10 minutes of your evening or night time to focus
on yourself and eliminate any stress that may have accumulated throughout the
day? No? How about starting one now?

Starting a night time routine that includes a simple neck
workout can help to relieve the day’s stresses. How do you relieve some neck
tension, stress or muscle tightness? One of the easiest ways to reduce stress is
to breathe deeply and slowly, this is also known as diaphragmatic breathing.
You get the most oxygen for your muscles and brain. This will be described at a
later time.

Other ways to reduce neck stress are to take a warm bath, read
and do some neck exercises. A quick but thorough neck workout that includes neck
range of motion, flexibility, strengthening and stretch exercises are great to
reduce built up neck tension. A simple neck workout can also help improve your
posture.

Doing a neck workout can also benefit you to a good night
sleep. Be sure your neck is properly supported by a pillow to avoid any neck
pain when you wake up. Also be sure to avoid clenching your teeth at night, not
only does this keep your face and jaw muscles tight but can grind your teeth
and cause temporomandibular joint (TMJ) problems. When you do strengthening
neck exercises, you can also tone your neck to avoid snoring at night.

On this blog there are many different neck exercises that
help with neck and head range of motions, stretch exercises to help with
flexibility and stress reduction and strengthening neck exercises. Other
exercises for neck include jaw and face as well as relief from headaches. With
these neck exercises to choose from, you can develop your own night time neck
workout just for you. Let me know what works for you.

Do you have a night time routine that includes a neck workout? If so, share here and let us know what works. What are some other stress relieving methods you do?

Technorati Tags: exercises for neck, face, flexibility, head, jaw, muscle tightness, neck exercises, neck pain, neck tension, neck workout, posture, range of motion, strengthening, stretch exercises

Want to know a good neck exercise to do on a break? Or a neck exercise to help with your posture? Maybe you would like to know a simple neck exercise to maintain shoulder range of motions? All of these can be done with the arm swing up neck exercise. 

This arm swing up neck exercise will work on various parts of your body. In the front, your chest muscles or pectoralis major and minor will be stretched. When you arms are raised up, you’ll be squeezing your shoulder blades together to strengthen the rhomboids. You will be keeping your chin aligned with your shoulders and that will prevent the forward head position. All of these positions will help with your posture to keep you upright. 

This arm swing up should be an easy neck exercise to do to help relax your shoulder and neck muscles. You want to relax your shoulders by keeping your shoulders down when raising your arms. This will limit the upper trapezius muscle from bringing your shoulders up towards your ears. This neck exercise will also help reduce neck tension.

You can do this arm swing up neck exercise sitting or standing. Standing will be described here. You will have greater range of motion and feel the effects of the neck exercise better when standing. If you may lose balance, you can start off this arm swing up neck exercise sitting. Let’s begin!

Standing Position:

• Feet shoulders width apart
• Knees slightly bent
• Stand up tall
• Chest up and towards the wall
• Relax your arms by your side
• Bring your chin back towards your shoulders
• Relax your jaw
• Look straight ahead

Arm Swing Up Neck Exercise:

• Breathe in
• Bring your palms together in front of you
• Raise your arms up towards the ceiling
• Keep your elbows straight
• If you can go past your ears great
• Breathe out
• Squeeze your shoulder blades together
• Hold for 10 seconds 
• Lower your arms slowly back to start
• Repeat 10 times

There should be no pain or discomfort with this arm swing up neck exercise. The motion should be smooth, slow and controlled. You may feel different areas being stretched when your arms are at the top. You want to be sure you don’t lean forward while doing this neck exercise. Other neck exercises will be described at a later time. 

Technorati Tags: chin tuck, neck exercise, neck exercises, pectoralis major, posture, range of motion, shoulder blades

Are you feeling tightness in your chest and the front of
your shoulders while working on the computer? Do you ever feel you need to do
some stretch exercises in these areas after a long and tiring day? Or do you
want to improve your posture and bring your shoulders back with neck exercises?
All of these can be accomplished with arm behind your back stretch exercises.

These arms behind your back stretch exercises will work on
your front chest muscle pectoralis major and your shoulder muscles anterior and
middle deltoids. You will also be strengthening your rhomboids while doing
shoulder blade pinches. These arms behind your back stretch exercises will help
relax your shoulders by strengthening your lower trapezius muscles. Other
muscles that may feel being stretched out are the levator scapulae (neck),
pectoralis minor (chest), supraspinatus (top of shoulder), serratus anterior
(rib cage) and coracobrachialis (inside of upper arm).

These arms behind your back stretch exercises can be done
sitting or standing. The best way to feel the stretch is standing up straight. When
bringing your arm behind your back, avoid bending forward or you will lose the
stretch at your chest. These arm behind your back stretch exercises works on
your shoulder and arm range of motions. Let’s begin with this standing arm
behind your back stretch exercises!

Standing Position:

• Feet shoulder width apart
• Knees slightly bent
• Your hips and pelvis should be pointing forward
• Have your chest up and out towards the wall
• Relax your shoulders down
• Pinch your shoulder blades together
• Perform a chin tuck by bring your chin back towards your
  shoulder blades
• Relax y our jaw
• Look straight ahead

Arm Behind Your Back Stretch Exercises:

• Breathe in
• Raise your right arm behind your back
• Bend your right elbow up to 90 degrees
• Place the back of your right hand on your back
• With your left hand, hold on to your right elbow
• Breathe out
• Using your left hand, guide your right arm across your back
  and up towards your shoulders
• Hold this position for 30 seconds
• Repeat 3 times
• Relax and switch arms to stretch the left side

You should feel various muscles stretched but no pain in any
direction. Only bring your arm up as far up your back to feel a stretch. You
can adjust bring your arm across by holding on to your wrist instead of your
elbow. You will feel the extra stretch by focusing on pinching your shoulder
blades together. Overall, this arm behind the back stretch exercises should
give you more range of motions in the shoulders and arms as well as relieve
neck tension and improve posture. Avoid any over stretching with this stretch
exercise. Other stretch exercises will be described at a later time.

Technorati Tags: chin tucks, levator scapulae, neck exercises, pectoralis major, posture, shoulder blade pinches, stretch exercises

Do you ever catch yourself with your neck and chin out forward? Want to strengthen the front of your neck and stretch the back of your neck? Are you just tired of doing regular chin tucks? How about trying doing the chin tucks in different angles and directions for your neck exercises? By doing chin tuck neck exercises, you will relieve both shoulder and neck tension.  

What are chin tucks? Chin tucks are where you bring your chin back, sort of like a drawer being closed shut. Isn’t a chin tuck just a chin tuck?  It’s true that a chin tuck is just a chin tuck but by doing them in different directions you can also work on your overall neck posture. When you strengthen a neck muscle, just like any other strength training, you want to go through all of the range of motions for the neck. These chin tuck neck exercises are a great way to make sure your neck gets training in all areas.

I’ll describe chin tucks in sitting but you can choose to do them in standing as well. People may never know you are doing chin tuck neck exercises and they are simple to do. There are different directions I want you to think of, the up and down or nodding motion and the rotation or side to side motion. This chin tucks neck exercises will focus on both directions. 

For the up and down or nodding motion, think of 12 o’clock above the top of your head, 9 o’clock is your starting position looking forward and 6 o’clock is where you chest is. When you do the neck rotation motions, think of 12 o’clock your right shoulder, 9 o’clock is your starting position and 6 o’clock is your left shoulder. Let’s begin!

Sitting Position:

• Feet flat on the floor
• Sit up straight
• Your chest up and facing the wall in front of you
• Place your hands on your lap
• Relax your shoulders
• Perform a chin tuck by bringing your chin back towards your shoulder blades
• Relax your jaw
• Eyes look straight ahead

Nodding Chin Tucks Neck Exercises:

• Breathe in
• Tilt the top of your head back to 12 o’clock
• Don’t let your mouth open when you tilt back
• Bring your chin back towards your shoulder blades
• Breathe out
• Hold for 10 seconds
• Breathe in
• Return back to starting at 9 o’clock
• Perform a regular chin tuck
• Breathe out
• Hold for 10 seconds
• Breathe in
• Bring your chin down towards your chest or 6’clock
• Tuck your chin in towards your chest and up towards the ceiling
• Breathe out
• Hold for 10 seconds
• Repeat these chin tucks for the 11 and then 7 o’clock positions
• Then perform these chin tucks again for the 10 and 8 o’clock positions
• Be sure after each motion to go back to the starting position
• Repeat each direction 10 times

Neck Rotation Chin Tuck Neck Exercises:

• Breathe in
• Turn your head to your right shoulder to 12 o’clock 
• Perform a chin tuck towards your left shoulder blade
• Breathe out
• Hold for 10 seconds
• Breathe in
• Return to the starting position at 9 o’clock
• Bring your chin directly back to your shoulder blades
• Breathe out
• Hold for 10 seconds
• Turn your head to your left shoulder towards 6 o’clock
• Bring your chin back towards your right shoulder
• Breathe out
• Hold for 10 seconds
• Return back to starting and go through the rest of the clock 11 and 7, 10 and 8
• Repeat 10 times each

You should not feel any pain in any chin tuck neck exercises. You may begin to feel a burning like sensation in the back of your neck after all these chin tuck neck exercises. When you do these chin tucks neck exercises a few times a week, your overall neck muscle strength will increase. Your endurance to do these neck exercises will also increase. This chin tucks neck exercises will improve your overall neck posture and avoid postural related conditions. Other chin tuck neck exercises will be described at a later time.

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