Safe Neck Exercise

Article by Glen Williams

Safe Neck Exercise – Health – Fitness

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If you’re like me, you’ve already done many things to relieve neck pain that actually cause damage over time.  Much of our neck pain is is preventable, once we understand the causes.  We, then, need to discover our specific needs, take actions to prevent the damage and set up an exercise routine to help prevent damage from unavoidable neck stresses.  Read on to learn neck pain usually isn’t as difficult or complicated as it seems.

Understanding Neck Pain:  The neck carries all the nerve signals, nutrients and air that our bodies need to function, and all the blood for our brains to function.  This is why the first thing we all need to know about our necks, is not to do anything without consulting a doctor…especially if we’re already feeling pain.  Because the neck carries all the nerve signals for our bodies, neck pain can be felt in our  shoulders, arms, hands, abdomen, legs, feet, and…um…neck.

The pain can be caused by muscle strain, emotional stress, bad dreams, sneezing, coughing,  cold, flu, swollen glands, thyroid diseases, tonsils, computer work, fractures from osteoporosis or injury, meningitis, encephalitis, some cancers, etc.  See why a doctor might come in handy if you’re feeling neck pain?  Most often, it’s simple muscle strain or stress, so don’t think it’s one of those exotic diseases.  Of course, doing anything more than taking over-the-counter medicine for neck pain may cause more damage.

Preventing Neck Damage:  I was one of those silly teenagers who learned to relieve neck stiffness by “cracking” my neck as one would pop a joint that got stiff.  While this temporarily relieves pain, it can cause a fracture immediately and, over time, causes osteoarthritis.  I get a lot of different neck pains, now, because i treated stress as though it was my neck out of joint.  Neck damage can come from an auto accident or fall, lifting or straining other muscles, or something as simple as a sneeze.  Obviously, follow lifting and other safety precautions to neck injuries when possible.

Safe Exercise For The Neck:  When it isn’t possible to avoid neck strains, it’s possible to reduce the risk of injury by strengthening the neck.  The head is extremely heavy, and has only the neck to hold it up.  By strengthening the neck muscles, we can significantly reduce chance of neck injury.  Of course, just like other areas, to prevent injury, see your doctor before entering into a neck exercise program.  All programs must begin gradually and very slowly build up…especially neck exercise.

1.  Thumb Pushes:  This is an exercise where you sit in a straight-back chair and push on your head with your thumb, while opposing that pressure with your neck muscles.  Push five minutes (start with 30 seconds) in one direction, then in another, until you’ve circled the head (30-40 min. total).  This is easy to do while watching TV, reading or talking on the phone.  If it hurts where your thumb contacts your head, you’re pushing too hard.

2.  Head Weight:  This is one to do very slowly and cautiously, with no extra muscles pushing in the direction the head is moving.  While standing or sitting in a straight-backed chair, slowly lower your head to one shoulder, then slowly raise it and lower it to the other shoulder.  Do the same thing front and back (don’t push with your muscles).  After doing this once, lower your head to one shoulder, then “roll it around” slowly in a kind of droopy circle (don’t push).  Build up from one of these a day to 10-20.  Never do this if it’s painful.

3.  Shoulder Roll:  While standing with your feet pointing in the same direction, a natural distance apart, your head straight up and arms straight down at your sides,  roll your shoulders forward four times and back four times, using pressure with your shoulder muscles.  Build up to repeating these 10-20 times a day.  This is very effective at work, to relieve stress from deadlines, computers, co-workers, etc.

4.  Stretching:  After any of these exercises, stretch your neck and upper back muscles before resuming normal activity.  In the same stance as 3. above, slowly relax your neck from top to bottom, allowing your head to roll forward.  Let your arms move forward as you continue relaxing your upper back to just below the shoulder blades.  Do not bend over but let your head and shoulders slump forward.  Without forcing it with any muscles, just let yourself hang there for 30 seconds, then slowly straighten up from middle back to head.

If you get any sharp neck or back pain while doing any of these, see a doctor.  If you get muscle pain a day or two afterward, you’re pushing the muscles or progressing too fast in your routine.  When you’re exercising at the right pace, all you should feel over time is a little toning of the neck and shoulder muscles. 

The neck, just like other areas of the body, can be strengthened, to reduce injury provide better fitness.  Obviously, this is no miracle system.  We’re not going to get immediate relief of neck pain from exercise.  What you can get over time is less injuries and less frequency of neck pain, a stronger posture, better stamina for work and a better ability to handle physical and psychological stress.  I think that’s quite a lot from a few simple exercise.

About the Author

Glen Williams is Webmaster atE-Health-Fitness Nutrition Exercise And Illness Help and Founder of E-Home Fellowship (EHF), Co.  He has counseled and helped people on life and health issues since 1987.   You can comment on his articles at hisHealth And Fitness Forums.

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Find More Neck Exercises Articles

Exercise Tips for Achieving a Strong Neck

Article by Mike Hardens

Exercise Tips for Achieving a Strong Neck – Health – Fitness

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There are definitely great benefits to performing exercises that focus on your neck. Your neck is sometimes referred to as your ‘second-core’, obviously connecting your head to your body, it has to support a lot of weight and head movements throughout the day. With such a pivotal role in your body, its surprising how often this body part is overlooked when it comes to exercise and fitness. Performing some basic exercises for your neck muscles can help to improve your overall appearance as well as provide improved posture and body alignment. And as a side bonus, girls tend to find guys with thicker necks more attractive, as it is a sign of health, strength, and vitality.

Your neck is composed of 4 main muscles, they are called the trapezius, levator scapulae, splenius and sternocleidomastoid. The names are hard to remember, but the ones that have the biggest impact on your appearance are the trapezius, also known as ‘traps’. These are the muscles in the back of your neck that extend and make up the gap between you neck and shoulders. Strong traps are one of the fastest ways for a man to appear musuclar, luckily they are a pretty simple muscle to workout!

There are some simple stretches you can perform daily that will help relieve tension in your neck as well as providing a warm up to any neck muscle exercises you might perform. They are performed best while sitting down and are good to do while sitting in your office chair, waiting on a train, or simply sitting on your couch. Start off by tilting your head forward slightly while bringing your chin down to your chest, hold for 20-30 seconds. The longer you hold it, the more you will start to feel the stretch get more intense in the back of your neck. Next, tilt your head back while keeping your mouth closed (to help stretch your front neck muscles even more), hold for 20-30 seconds. Then tilt you head over to one of your shoulders, making sure to not bring your shoulder up to your ear, hold for 20-30 seconds and then repeat to the other side. Once you have done each of these exercises twice, then roll your read around in a big circular motion a few times in both directions.

Now you are ready to do some exercises for neck muscles. It is best to make use of some type of neck exercise equipment, and for these purposes, dumbbells are the perfect fit. The easiest and most effective movement for your traps are shrugs. You can perform shrugs by simply grabbing a pair of dumbbells. With the dumbbells down by your side, bring your shoulders up towards your ears without bending your arms, at the top of the movement briefly pause for a second and then let them back down, repeat for 8-12 reps and do 4 sets. You can also ‘roll’ your shoulders forward or backwards while bringing them up to your ears if that is more comfortable for you.

Forms of Neck Exercise EquipmentThere are other types of neck exercise equipment you can use as well. A wrap around neck stengthener wraps around the top of your head, similar to a headband except it is weighted and typically weights around 5 lbs. To use the device, you simply put it on top of your head on and do stuff around your house, or slowly perform the stretching movements described above, and while 5 lbs doesn’t seem like much, if you were to wear it for about 15 minutes a day, you would really start to notice a difference!

The last piece of neck exercise equipment is the head harness.

Now we don’t really like this piece of equipment as it looks like a medieval torture device, however, they can be very effective. Boxers use this as a neck muscle exercise because it really helps them be able to absorb all the neck snapping motions that occur when getting jabbed in the face. So unless you are a boxer or serious bodybuilder, we say just stick with some basic dumbbell or barbell shrugs or get one of the neck strengtheners.

If you currently do no exercises for neck, we recommend at least doing the stretches recommend above and this will at a minimum serve to help prevent neck injury and stiffness, as well as help you feel more relaxed through the day. But try to incorporate a neck muscle exercise in your workout routine using one of the different types of neck exercise equipment and you’ll develop a much stronger and attractive looking neck!

About the Author

At the exercise equipment fanatic, you can find great reviews on the top fitness equipment online. To read other workout and exercise articles ranging from jumping rope to dumbbell workouts please visit our site.

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Mike Hardens

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Neck And Back Stretches Perfect For Starting Out

Article by Pat Lowe

There’s a wide array of stretching techniques that target your back and neck, many of them uncomplicated and effective. If you’re a novice attempting to relax your muscles, give these simple techniques a try.

Beginner Back Stretch: A highly effective stretch for the back is the basic back stretch. Here’s what you need to do: Standing erect, contract your abdominal muscles while you bend forward at the hips, lowering your hands to the ground. Relax the head downwards and push using the fingertips; feel the stretch in the back while you do this. Maintain this pose for 30 seconds; if you find this too difficult, build up slowly to this amount of time.

Wide Back and Shoulder Stretch: This move should follow right after the basic back stretch. With your hands remaining on the ground, place your feet wide apart and position your arms inside your legs. Lift your hands off the floor and wrap your arms around the back of your calves, then grasp your ankles. Pull gently with the hands, thus opening up the shoulders and stretching the upper back. Maintain this pose for around 30 seconds.

The Shoulder Roll: Shoulder rolls are the simplest stretches that can be done. Either sitting or standing upright, rotate your shoulders upwards, backwards, down then forward. Begin with small circles and work up to a larger movement. Do 10 circles in the backwards direction, then reverse direction and do 10 repetitions going forward.

As well, you need to be sure that you avoid movements and actions that could cause back and neck pain. Good posture is critical. And you will need to be particularly cautious whenever you’re lifting a heavy item. You will need to bend down, then use your legs instead of your back to carry the load while you lift.

The way you sleep at night also has an effect on the pain you are feeling in your neck and back. A properly supportive pillow and mattress are essential, and keep the temperature set just right to ensure that you don’t have a restless sleep. By doing a few easy stretches before you go to bed at night, you’ll loosen up your muscles and have a sound sleep.

Top 5 Exercises To Build Neck Muscles

Article by Balu Muscle

There are several reasons why people want to build neck muscles; you will look taller, you will look great in your outfit and it gives a feeling of strength and health to the public.

A lot of fighters work on their neck because studies have shown that having strong neck muscles will make it harder to get knocked out and I guess every fighter want to avoid that.

Exercises for your neck

Tags: Build, Exercises, Muscles, Neck

How to Minimize Neck Soreness, Back Ache, and Sciatica in three Quick Steps – Excess weight Loss and the Bad Back again

February 8, 2012 by admin  
Filed under Back Exercises

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Article by Chris Bullock

Walk the dogs! Heck, walk the cat! Just make positive you stroll! Don’t see your stroll as physical exercise, appearance at it as an escape, personal time, time with your thoughts, time by yourself. Alter your concentrate and you will discover your walks getting more time and the neck soreness, back again ache, and sciatica, along with that nagging pounds difficulty, and the resultant depression have only walked correct out of your daily life. Baby methods out the door! Baby techniques down the stairs! Child….You know the drill.Getting practical objectives and pursuits could basically make you sense improved each and each and every action of the way. Concentrate on smaller objectives, an individual at a time, and when you attain them they will give you the extra incentive to push on to the following. Constantly redefine and relaxation your goals in conditions of your extended phrase objectives and techniques. Eventually, you will achieve more if you simply emphasis on these days.The A.A. motto of “An individual Day at a Time!” might be just the mantra to aid you by means of.There are more than 196,000,000 obese grown ups in the United States alone. That is a staggering point, specially when viewed in the context of the subsequent simple fact, that a lot more kids and youthful grown ups are obese than at any stage in our background. Ever! Of program, as we age bones drop density and muscle groups often grow to be weaker. The age-progressive factors coming into play and putting pressure on the spine are myriad. Injury due to obesity is frequently irreversible, it is definitely critical to maintain optimum human body weight and muscle tone. The previously mentioned talked about reality is but a single extra good reason for initiating and maintaining an physical exercise routine. By turning out to be, then remaining, active our musculoskeletal method will continue being wholesome. The old adage that a balanced head and a healthy body are inextricably connected is so obvious it barely requires to be stated.Cheers!Drinking water fasting body weight loss can be pretty dramatic. In the early days of a water quick, a very few pounds per day of fat reduction is common.As the quick progresses the fat loss slows.Bodyweight Loss AveragesThe common body weight loss for the to begin with week of a water swiftly is 11 pounds. For the second week it is 7 pounds and for the third week 3 lbs.Hence the typical everyday bodyweight reduction for a fast of 21 days is a pound per day.The fee of Unwanted fat reduction throughout a water rapidly is all-around two or 3 pounds per week.The rest of the water fasting excess weight reduction is water excess weight.The entire body stores water in order to dilute its toxic load. So the much more toxic a person’s entire body, the more h2o it is probable storing.As the toxins are cleaned out during a h2o quick, this water is released.The glycogen merchants of the body are depleted throughout a more time swiftly and this, collectively with the number of lbs of h2o wanted to retailer glycogen, account for a very few pounds of the bodyweight lost.This weight will come back again inside a few of days right after breaking the rapid as the glycogen outlets are replenished.

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Lower back pain exercises to relieve pain in the low or lower back. These lower back pain exercises and in fact each lower back pain exercise in this clip will help back pain, relieve back pain, end back pain and even end back pain. These are rehab exercises for your lower back. The tight…
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Lower Back and Neck Pain – A Look at Their Various Causes

January 15, 2012 by admin  
Filed under Lower Back Exercises

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Article by James Martin

Lower back and neck pain are certainly typical ailments and the hunt for alternative remedies has steadily grown since we discover the unwished-for results of prescription drugs, like acetaminophen. Natural herbs are one means you’ll be able to choose to assist in countering and alleviating neck and lower back pain.

As stated by the National Pain Foundation, some back and neck nuisance might possibly be induced by inside organs which aren’t even near the backbone or spine. In case you go through consistent or serious ache, get in touch with your doctor or a neurologist to help you locate exactly the reason for the trouble. And even if numerous pure substances obtained from plant sources are regarded as safe, several might have uncomfortable side effects on your body. When thinking about using natural herbs for lower back and neck pain, explore premier health websites to examine potential medicine interactions and precautionary measures.

Lower back pain can be brought forth by exerting too much pressure on the muscle tissues of the posterior part. This takes place when the muscle is torn or excessively elongated owing to straining physical work like lifting or abrupt motion. Quite often, the soreness is confined within a specific region. One more potential reason for lower back pain is actually a herniated disc.

The back comprises discs known as herniates. Herniates feature a tender, interior core which can at times get out due to harm. In case this occurs, force is exercised on the spinal nerve and causes nuisance and a tickling feeling that can be experienced up to the legs completely. Cracks or a late time of life can also have an effect upon the joints that bind the vertebrae in the back. When the vertebrae slide against one another, nerves can be squeezed tightly and cause lower backache.

Neck nuisance is a consequence of disorders with the nerves, connective tissues, muscles, bones, articulations or spinal column. The most widespread causes include physical damage or deterioration on any of these vital constituents, whilst more uncommon causes consist of tumors or contagions.

The most usual reason for neck ache is harm to the muscles and ligaments or connective tissues. Any hasty turning or jerking like that gone through in vehicle hits, sports injury or a collapse can cause nuisance.

Diseases characterized by inflammation such as degenerative joint disease and rheumatism can bear upon the neck by generating rheumatic bone spurs or joint wear and tear, which brings on more marked, continuing nuisance.

As individuals grow older, the discs located in the neck are vulnerable to deterioration, which can lead to disc degeneration. This places strain on the backbone and can bring forth unrelenting neck pain. Other more exceptional reasons for nuisance comprise tumors, contagions, inherited disorders and medical problems, for example myelopathy and stricture.

James Martin recommends natural lower back pain relief methods to enhance the quality of life. Visit his website to buy top-quality natural supplements for relieving muscular, bone and neck pain. Discover the true difference without any usual side effects.

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