Every day thousands upon thousands of people visit a doctor, chemist, chiropractor
or physiotherapist for
neck and shoulder pain relief. Thousand upon thousands
search the internet for the magic elixir that will remove their pain.
If you’ve
got neck or shoulder pain, likely as not you’ve got a vertical stacking problem.
Vertical
stacking simply means how your joints relate to each other.
Here’s an example
of vertical stacking.
Stand with your back to a wall, calves, bottom and shoulders touching the
wall. When you are looking straight out at the wall in front of you, is your
head touching the wall?
If there is a gap between your head and the wall then your body is vertically
out of alignment.
Tight calves, hamstring and buttock muscles have tilted your pelvis back causing
your head and shoulders to move forward.
Standing in the same position, put your arms back against the wall in the
surrender position. Can you get the backs of your forearms and fingers against
the wall?
If you can’t, those tight calf, hamstring and buttock muscles have tilted
your pelvis back, with the shoulders (and head) going forward to compensate.
Chances are that the muscles around your shoulders are also tight. Most people
don’t have a shoulder strength and flexibility training program. In fact they
hardly use their shoulders at all from one week to the next.
Think about it, how often do you raise your hands above your head? The only
time most people do is when they hang out the washing, and if you live in a
unit you probably don’t even do that, you just throw the washing into the dryer.
Putting food into your mouth and a phone to your ear are about the only reasons
for lifting your hands about your shoulders.
If you’ve got sore shoulders and you don’t have a good shoulder strength and
flexibility training program you’re suffering from motion starvation.
But as well as the work to be done on the muscles around your shoulders, when
it’s all boiled down you’ve ended up with a sore neck and shoulders because
you aren’t vertically stacked in the way nature intended.
It’s ironic that most therapists will work on your neck and shoulders, forgetting
that the cause of the pain lies further down the body.
You can save yourself a lot of time, effort and money by doing a set of exercises
to loosen off tight calves, hamstrings and buttock muscles and get your body
back into better vertical alignment. Head and shoulders will go back to where
they should be. Problem solved. Pain gone. Simple. Cheap. Effective.
But it’s not just your neck and shoulders that are put under pressure it’s
also your lower back. When the pelvis is tilted back, the ‘S” shape in your
spine turns into a ‘C’ shape. What you’ve got is a personally-generated musculo-skeletal
dysfunction.
It’s personally generated by sitting down for long periods of time in the
’slump dog’ position. To avoid getting into that position you need to be sitting
up straight at your desk, back of the chair upright and pushing in up under
your shoulder blades and abdomen pressing into the desk.
It’s critical that your abdomen is pushing into the desk. Look around any
office and you’ll see very few people with their abdomen touching the desk.
They’re setting themselves up for back, shoulder and neck pain. Next thing
you know they’ll have sore wrists as well.
The good news is that being personally generated you can personally ungenerate
these dysfunctions.
To relieve back pain, neck and shoulder pain, spend an hour or two each evening
on the floor in front of the TV loosening off those tight calf, hamstring and
buttock muscles with a simple set of exercises. You don’t have to do anything,
just spend the time allowing muscles to gradually loosen off them selves.
You’ll also need to do some specific strength and flexibility exercises for
your neck and shoulders.
In the meantime stay tuned, highly tuned and remember, it’s a big ask expecting
to obtain back, neck and shoulder pain relief having someone do something to
you; sooner or later you have to do something to yourself.
John Miller
PS: If you suffer from Neck and Shoulder Pain Download a FREE musculoskeletal pain Emergency Handbook. Find Out How you can
Relieve Neck Pain in Just a Few Short Weeks!
Labels: neck and shoulder pain, neck and shoulder pain relief, neck pain relief
