How To Get Rid Of Neck & Shoulder Knots In Under 5 Minutes

I’m going to show you how to get rid of knots in the neck and shoulder area with two exercises in just five minutes. It’s really that quick to start getting relief of those neck and shoulder knots. Before I talk to you about that, I just want to explain a bit about why they’re happening. Because there’s a lot of confusion in the medical field about what’s the source of them.

I often hear healthcare providers just chalk it up to stress. And I’m not saying that you’re not a stressed-out person, I don’t know your life personally. But everybody has stress. And I think when healthcare providers just say, it’s just stress related, they’re leaving them hanging. They’re leaving them in a position where they don’t have anything left to do but continue to stress out about the knots in their neck and shoulders. In addition to all the other stress going on in their life.

So let me give you the physiological explanation for why these neck and shoulder knots happen. I got my skeleton here to help me out. So as you can see here, the neck is right here, and then you have the collarbones. And then you’ve got a couple of ribs, way up here at the top, here’s the first pair of ribs, and the second pair of ribs right below it. From the back to you. Here they are first ribs, and then the second ribs right here.

Now, if you go over and feel those knots, and it feels hard, like a bone hard, it’s probably a bone hybrid that’s popped up. And a lot of people don’t realize this, they think that it’s muscle tension. trigger points is another thing that I hear out there. Some people think it’s a nerve, which I think it’s a little bit of all of that coming together. But the hard thing that’s that’s sticking up and that feels bony in there, that is tender when you poke on it.

And especially if you’ve got trouble turning your head to one side, like you can turn one way better than the other, you can turn left or right all the way, it likely is a rib issue. And these first two ribs appear are often forgotten by people in the medical field. They’re not that people don’t know how to check them; people don’t know what to do about them. In here, El Paso Manual Physical Therapy, we treat them all the time we look at them on everybody to make sure that they’re not a problem.

They are critical in making sure that there’s enough space around the nerves that pass under here, because let me tell you one of the problems we find often you see the nerves, the nerves that come off the neck here, they all bundled together and come under the collarbone and sit right over those first couple of ribs. So oftentimes, those ribs get popped up, they can send numbing and tingling sensations or pain or weakness into the arm.

Because those same nerves that come out of the neck here go all the way to the fingertips, and they can produce those sensations. So oftentimes, symptoms Come on more as people are upright, like as the day goes on, or at night when they are sleeping, because when they lie on their side, the collarbone can come down and compress those nerves, especially those ribs already popped up.

So if you have chronic knots in the neck and shoulders, and then you’ve also got this numbness, tingling that goes down into the arms, or if you’re holding your phone too long, especially like in bed, got your neck up on a pillow, these ribs are often the problem. And now the next question we ask, so that we can get into the treatment part is why do these ribs come up? And the answer is there’s a few muscles that start up here in the neck and go down and connect into the ribs here. They’re called the scalene muscles.

Now, these scalene muscles are primarily breathing muscles, you take real deep breaths, your ribs have to come up all the way in order to allow them the lungs to fill up. And so these ribs way up top are pulled up slightly by those scalene muscles.

The problem is, if you’ve got a desktop, or if you use a mobile device quite a bit, or if you just don’t have the best posture in your neck and shoulders. And that’s been going on for a long time. If your heads kind of in a forward position here, those scalene muscles start to become overuse quite a bit. And if they are overused a lot, they tighten up, they shorten because you work them out essentially by using them too much.

And then they start to pull the ribs up all the time, even when you’re not breathing very hard even if you’re just sitting around and that can cause that not sensation, if you imagine all the muscles that are over the ribs here and those ribs start pushing up it pushes up into the nerves into the muscles and it can for sure cause muscle spasms and nerve problems.

So we’re not completely accurate but you know, healthcare providers aren’t completely inaccurate In saying that, oh, it’s your stress because you’re in bad posture, or the muscle tension or nerves. But the fix for this is to get those ribs down. So let me show you two exercises that we start our patients off whenever they have these rib problems.

You’re going to take the pillowcase. So you can take your pillowcase just like this. You’re going to open it up all the way and then fold it in half Long Way, and then fold it in half the long way, again, doesn’t have to be perfect. And you’re going to twist it up, you just want something with some handles on that’s flexible, what you can do is put it around your neck, we’re going to free up the joints in your neck, that are not letting those scalene muscles relax. So then what you’re going to do is cross over, like so.

Now, this is my right hand right here against my chest. And this is my left hand. So you got to pay close attention here. So you do this right, people confuse this part all the time, I right hands in a state planted down against my chest, then my left hand is going to pull towards the left in my head is going to slightly turn to the left along with it, the pillowcase is pressing up against the bones of my neck here to free him up.

Now the side that you’re having trouble turning to if you’re having trouble with that, you’re going to want to work the most and you can reposition the pillowcase just like so my neck popped just to free it up just like that oftentimes, the neck will pop if it’s real stuck. And I wouldn’t go trying to force it to pop or reproducing it pops once and you leave it alone, you don’t have to keep trying to re-pop it.

It’s that’s good evidence that this is working for you and that it’s freeing up and it’s going to allow those muscles to calm down so that you’re not you know, having such discomfort up here in the neck and shoulder area. So you can just work this here for about two minutes, literally set a timer, you can do a minute on each side, if you’re going to do the other side, then you got to switch hands see that what I did.

There we go. I do the wrong myself. So that’s you’re going to switch hands like so my left hands against my chest. Now my right hands going to pull towards my right and I’m going to turn my head to the right, and just stretch out those joints. And be gradual with this, you don’t want to hurt yourself or do this too hard, you want to see him just kind of bouncing at the end, you don’t want to hold it there for a long time.

That could be aggravating more to the scalene muscles. If you stretch an already tight muscle and hold it, it might want to stretch it might want to tighten up more. So you kind of want to massage the joint loose just like so you can work different angles and try different positions on your neck. Now after you feel like you’ve done that, it’s okay to go more than a couple of minutes if you want.

I’ve never had anybody overdo this and get hurt as long as you’re not stretching too hard. But after you’ve done that, now you’re ready to do a very important exercise. Now chances are, if you’ve got those types, scalene muscles right here that are yanking up those ribs and pushing those bones up into the area causing those hard knots, those bumps back there that are painful.

Chances are you’ve got some weak muscles up here, the upper traps, the upper traps connect to the neck and the base of the skull and then they run downwards to the shoulders here, they’re the muscles that you can feel right as soon as you put your hand on your shoulder. They’re the most superficial muscle right here, the one right under my hand, those muscles tend to get weak if you don’t use your shoulders and your arms, right.

So I’m going to show you how to use your shoulders and arms right, in a simple exercise you can do at home and your chair standing however you want to do this. And I have to tell you though, it’s going to be a little bit intense, but it’s real shorts just for a couple of minutes. And then you should feel a little improvement.

After that, what you want to do is just reach straight up, just like so now notice what I’m doing my chin here I’m keeping my chin a little bit tucked like I’m making a little tiny double chin. And then holding my chin tucked, I’m going to shrug all the way I’m still looking straight ahead. I’m not looking up or down or anywhere else. But I’m going to shrug as hard as I can here for 10 seconds.

You could check the time on the video here, I’m not really keeping count, but that’s about 10 seconds, and then relax. And then do that 10 times I’m going to keep going here, I may not do all 10 but you do 10 at home. I’m just going to talk you through this a bit. So keep your chin tucked down because as you come up, see, it’s not just reaching up, it’s shrugging up. As you come up when you shrug, your head is going to want to shift positions and you have to keep it in the same position.

This is really important because those scalines as soon as you shift your head especially if it kind of goes forward, it looks up, you’re going to want to use those scalines more and that’s what we’re trying to avoid. So if you keep that chin just a little bit tucked in or a slight baby double chin, then you should calm down those scalines and work the upper traps since you feel kind of intense on your upper traps, you need to go 100% whenever you shrug up, do this 10 times so it’ll take you a couple of minutes.

That’s 100 seconds. There’s 120 seconds and two minutes depending on how long you take a rest break you do the math, but go all the way up just when you think you can go pirate, dig down deep and go all the way up. Hold it for 10 seconds. And then you can come back down and keep going like this.

As you do this. It should feel like your neck is kind of relaxing afterwards of course is of course it’s intense while you’re doing this, but it should relax as you are done in between reps and you got to go 10 second holds, there’s a scientific reason for that. There are nerves that connect to all the muscles and some of the muscles, some of the muscle fibers, some of the cells within your upper trap muscles may not be on, they may not be turned on or working very well. But when you hold a contraction like that, it allows the nerves to begin to wake up all the sleeping muscle cells so that you use them all the way.

And that’s what helps you to get longer term relief so that you’re not having to do this all the time. Now, that leads me into the last part of today’s video that I wanted to tell you about. Oh, and by the way, before I forget, there is a lighter version of this exercise that I’ve linked in the description below here. It’s called How to relieve neck and shoulder pain. And I show you the lighter version of this exercise, it’s using a wall and you’re going to use your arms like this was a girl in the video, she does a great job, the physical therapist friend of mine, and check out that video in cases is kind of intense.

Because this version right here, we’re reaching straight up for some people, especially if they’re really aggravated in their arms, or if they’ve got like a rotator cuff problem or some other big nerve issue. Reaching all the way up may not be comfortable, it could cause numbness and tingling and some people that are really aggravated those nerves that I explained. So there’s an easier way to do that, just check out the video in the description below.

Okay, last thing I wanted to talk to you about just so that you have the full picture here is these two things are the first steps in being able to prevent this problem from coming back. We teach people how to prevent this problem from coming back forever indefinitely. The key is making sure that you’ve got good strength in those upper trap muscles right here, the ones that you’re trying to work out in this exercise and maintaining that strength overhead.

Now, the next step that we take people to on that shrugging exercise is adding some weights. And we have oftentimes weightlifters that come in here, people that like to do overhead presses cross-fitters and power lifters and other people that are into weightlifting. And even people that are just more so weekend warriors just like to exercise to stay fit, not necessarily because they’re trying to beef up. But they’ll do an overhead press with weights. And I love that movement.

Especially if you’re shrugging you have to shrug during that movement. If you can maintain the ability to pick up significant weight, which it’s relative to everybody, of course, you know everybody’s different weights and sizes.

But generally speaking, if you can pick up about 25% of your body weight. So just to put it in perspective, I am a 200 plus pound person turned 25 pounds. So I got to be able to pick up about 60 pounds of overhead for 10 repetitions making sure that I shrugged all the time. So you can do the math accordingly.

If you are smaller or bigger than me, you can figure out the math. And if you’re not there, if you’re thinking oh my gosh, I can’t even pick up 10% of my body weight right now. That’s okay, you just start where you’re at, start with no weight, and then work your way up gradually first fix the the rib problem where it’s coming up right here, as that gets better, then you should be able to tolerate a little bit more weight and a little bit more weight over time.

 And where you want to settle or maintain is being able to pick up 10 reps about 25% of your body weight or more. And if you maintain that, theoretically, you should be able to not overuse those scalene muscles and that want to yank up your ribs appear.

Oftentimes, when we see people with this rip problem, there’s two things that have happened. It’s happened gradually over time they’ve been in a desktop haven’t really exercised much at all. And it’s just built up over time that posture thing is just the straw that broke the camel’s back, it happened long enough that eventually the roots are going to pop up and get stuck and cause that discomfort.

And then the other time is we see people that are actually very into weightlifting and just have wrong technique or have a bad lift or something. And then the rib gets shifted up. That occasionally happens as well. That one’s more rare. But it’s more frequently the person that just doesn’t do a whole lot of upper body exercise. And we have people that are fit the committee with runners that are very fit other endurance athletes, other sports athletes, but they don’t do a whole lot of overhead lifting and do a lot of exercise where they’re reaching up overhead. And they have to shrug all the way and down, so they just don’t get the strength through the upper traps that’s needed.

Now, I know you might have a question because I get this asked all the time. It’s when asked us before I forget. A lot of people will say, Well, what about doing shrugs with weights down by your legs? Like if you holding the weights in your hands and it’s down here and then you just shrug up like that? Does that work?

My answer to that is kind of it’s better than nothing. Because you still are working your upper traps, you’re still going to create more space. So we’re here to get your nerves freed up in those scalene relax so that you can get the ribs to go down. But your arms, your shoulders, they’re mechanically designed the way they’re created.

The way the ball and socket interact and the collarbone over the way everything moves. It’s designed for you to reach up overhead. I mean, how often do you pick up something just shrugging, if you’re going to carry something usually don’t shrug you just walk with it down at your sides.

But if you’re going to pick up something overhead, you should be shrugging. So, my best answer to this is you can go ahead and keep chugging with weight and people can lift some serious weight, like hundreds of pounds, shrugging, like so. And that’s fine getting stronger like that. But I would have to ask, the question is, are you really coming all the way up if you’re down here and is that what’s best for your neck and nerves, if you’re trying to fix this rip problem, I would start doing this kind of shrug with the hands up overhead.

It’s important to have those hands up overhead because that’s where our shoulders are designed to work. And you got to maintain the ability to do that as you age. As you get older, people just stop lifting weights up overhead. And it starts to cause these neck and shoulder problems feeds into a bunch of other issues. arthritis, stenosis, rotator cuff tears, I can go on and on. But for the sake of this video, do the overhead reaching exercise with the shrug that is the number one way to go to solve these two knots in your neck and shoulders.

Well, guys, I hope this video was helpful for you. If you’re in El Paso area, you’re thinking of coming to the El Paso area, and you’re considering getting our help to solve your knots in the neck and shoulder problems. If they’ve been really bad and you’re just tired of dealing with them. You’re done with having to take over the counter medication or some people even get injections. Occasionally people go get a surgery for this. It’s not really done much.

They’re looking at doing spine surgery up in the neck. That is something that’s completely preventable here in the clinic, El Paso man physical therapy, we specialize in helping people avoid an unnecessary surgery, injections and medications. And we do it all naturally, with hands on treatment.

We’re manual therapists, we’re specialists in getting these ribs to shift back down into position, making sure that the right muscles are working, making sure that by hand free up all the joints up in the neck and in the shoulders as well. Oftentimes, people when they come up with this problem, they are having pain down into their shoulder and all the way in the arm. So we treat the whole body not just you know that one area.

And when we progress patients to treatment on this, they, we see that we see it through we make sure that they’re getting stronger emotionally, getting to the weightlifting, getting all the right things, or whatever is appropriate for their case. In some cases, some people don’t want to do weightlifting, we have other options that we can go through at that point.

If you’re thinking of getting our help, the easiest thing to do is get in touch with us by scrolling to the bottom of this page right here and find the discovery visit button, the one that says request a free discovery visit. What that is it’s a 20-minute appointment with a specialist physical therapist, where we can take a look at your knots in your neck and shoulder see where your neck joints are moving. See what’s going on. And we’ll diagnose the problem for you tell you what’s going on exactly. And we’ll explain it in layman’s terms so that it’s not, you know, just too much for you and over your head. And then will let you ask all the questions you want.

We will take out the skeleton and explain things take up the anatomy book and we’ll look at pictures will Google pictures on the Internet of course if we need them. Our goal with everybody coming in for a discovery visit is for them to walk out of here feeling like they know exactly what’s going on like it was explained to them properly and they know what to do. And you’ll have the option to become more patient at that time.

If you want to begin treatments, you can book the next visit and see if that’s something you want to do. We can talk about making an entire plan to get rid of this problem for the long term. Right now, giving away the discard is it for free so if you scroll down to the bottom, hit that discovery visit button and a little window will pop up asking for your information. Just drop your information in there. I hope that we can be a part of your success story real soon. Have the best day.