Stretching, Neck/Back Pain- Tips

[Angelique]

Today, for some reason I started thinking about the range of motion exercises that I learned in massage school years ago. We did them on clients, but you can do them on yourself. Here's a couple of tips that I remembered today.

If you are trying to increase your flexibility in a position, follow these steps.

1. Always warm up. Don't hurt yourself, please.

2. Get into the position you are working on and go as far as you normally can go without hurting yourself.

3. Now, relax a little and find something that you can use for resistance, I usually use my hands.

4. Push in the opposite direction (that you were originally trying to stretch) providing resistance with your hands (or whatever else you are using for resistance).

5. Try the original stretch again. This should allow you to go a little farther. MAKE SURE you don't go too far and hurt yourself. You want to go little by little, even though you might feel more flexible right after providing resistance.

Also, I wanted to share that if you are feeling a lot of back or neck pain from being on the computer, you might get someone to rub your back and neck.
That's good, but make sure that you are also rubbing your chest area (pectorals) and stretching by looking up (slowly) and trying to touch your shoulder blades together.

The idea is to massage and stretch your posterior and anterior parts in a balanced way so you're not 'over-worked' on one area. You need to do the opposite of what you were consistently doing to cause the pain. (For example, the opposite position of hunching over your computer, if that's the problem.)

[antoanette]

Thanks for the tips Angelique. I often suffer from neck pain from staying too long on the computer.

[Mike75]

Good Tips. Stretching is very important. Can't tell you how many times have I hurt myself due to lack of stretching.

[Haigha]

Some of these tips sound like more fun than using a computer in the first place...

[Trezker]

Originally Posted by Haigha

Some of these tips sound like more fun than using a computer in the first place...

Nothing is more fun than using a computer. Nothing!

Anyway, if you think anything in life is boring you should watch this video.
YouTube - Divide and Conquer: How the Essence of Mindfulness Parallels the Nuts and Bolts of Science

[ginkgo]

Yoga is the best for range of motion. Dr Oz has his patients do it.

[Explinfin]

Hey guys, I have been suffering from chronic back pain and sciatica for nearly 5 years. I made one of my goals for 2010 to cure my back pain and have been really working towards doing it.

This week I have had the least amount of pain in over 5 years and it's because of spinal decompression. This can mean inversion therapy or a few other ways. I got a device called the Nubax... Here's a post from my blog that talks about it -> Nubax Trio, 3 days later… Spinal decompression works! | Exploring Infinity

For neck pain you would probably want to go with inversion therapy if you can because the nubax doesn't do the neck. I got it for my sciatic and chronic lower back pain and it's been extremely effective. For more info on how I am progressing with curing my back pain, you can follow along on my blog which is in my signature.

[Paulineabc]

Well, I am simply not permitted to sit at the computer for more than one hour by my baby dictator. He either yells or climbs over my lap or just pulls me out. Wonder how I get any work done. The plus point of all this is that I will never become overweight or have any aches or pains.