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Try these simple exercises to relieve neck and shoulder discomfort.

Do you ever feel like your lower back tighten up while you are sitting or standing for any length of time?

This is unfortunately too common and as it turns out quite costly.  According to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation between 1996-2016 treatments for lower back and neck pain cost nearly $77 billion by private insurance, $45 billion by public insurance, and $12 billion out of pocket by patients themselves in the U.S.

Those numbers likely don't include over-the-counter medications and some non-medical treatments for pain.

While injury, surgery, and other physical trauma can be sources of back discomfort there are many lifestyle or habit-driven activities that over time can be the main driver of back pain, tightness, and discomfort.

Let's start with an easy not-so-easy....posture.

1. Easy, because for many of us, it is something we can readily fix.  Not so easy because
2. You have to wade through the plethora of conflicting information.
3. The information may...

Do you struggle with neck tightness.?  Is turning your head sometimes nearly impossible or at least quite uncomfortable?

Do you need to constantly stretch your neck or move it around, looking for a comfortable position?

We have been talking this month about your rib cage connections to your head, neck, arms, core, and spine.

In this installment, we are going to:

1. Have you checked four muscles in your neck that are attached to your rib cage that, when ‘tight’ can restrict how your head and neck move
2. Discuss what may be driving the tightness 
3. Give you some strategies for you to try

Let's get started:

• Stand in front of a mirror.
• Turn your head to the right. Return to center.  Turn to the left. Return to center.
• Repeat three times. 
•  Do you feel a difference side-to-side?
•  When you do this, do you notice your torso moving as well?

Now check:

• Bring your right ear down towards your right shoulder.
• Return to center.  ...

The ribcage has three major roles in the health of our body, how it moves and more.  Watch this fun, interactive webinar and discover the major roles of the ribcage and why it important for you to know when it comes to the health of your body and how it moves.

We left off our last newsletter about the rib cage with some questions for you to think about.

1. Does your rib cage feel mobile or stiff?  Do you breathe easily?
2. When you turn or move your head, can you do so easily?
3. Is your rib cage flared at the bottom?

How did you answer these?  

If you answered, your rib cage feels pretty stiff: You are likely not receiving all the benefits of breathing well. When we breathe well or three-dimensionally, it helps create mobility in our rib cage.  The opposite is true when we don't breathe well. It can make our rib cage stiffer by overusing the muscles that are attached to it for the simple task of breathing.

If you answered you don't breathe well:  Your rib cage may also be it stiff or rigid.  Perhaps you feel like you cannot get a breath fully in or out.  

If you answered you do not turn your head well or easily to one side or the other:  The muscles that are attached from your neck to your...

If you have been following our newsletters we have been sharing some great strategies to decrease the tightness, pressure, and discomfort in your eyes, neck, and shoulders.

In this installment, we will look at some common exercises you may be doing and how to bring the new information into your workouts to decrease the pressure on your neck and shoulders.

Planks, push-ups, and rows can all be great exercises for improving upper body and core strength.  Yet, when these same exercises are performed less than optimally they can cause tightness, pain, and injury.

Keys to getting the strength without the tightness pain and injury:

1. Modify the exercise for success.  This means you can perform the exercise while maintaining the alignment of your spine, neck, and shoulders.
2. Avoid exercises or performing exercises in a way that changes your alignment or causes you not to be able to breathe properly.
3. Stop doing the exercise before you lose your alignment,...

In this interactive webinar, we share why you may be experiencing neck discomfort from your daily technology use and what you can do about it.

There are some super useful tips in this forty-minute video. 

Take this quick quiz.

Can you move your eyes without moving your head and neck?

Hmmm…

Give it a try. 

• Turn just your eyes to the right. Come back to center.
• Turn just your eyes to the left. Come back to center.
• Move just your eyes to look down.
• Move just your eyes to look up.

How did you do?  Were you able to move just your eyes without moving your head and neck?  Unsure?  Try again.

According to the American Academy of Ophthalmology, six eye muscles control eye movement. One muscle moves the eye to the right, and one muscle moves the eye to the left. The other four muscles move the eye up, down, and at an angle.

Why is this important?

To move your eyes from side to side requires just two muscles.  To move your eyes up, down, and down requires just four.  If every time you look right or left just 30 degrees and you must turn your neck to accomplish this, you also use about 3-5 neck and the eye muscles. Depending on the flexibility of...

Did you know that every exercise is a core exercise?

Over the last few installments, we have been discussing the core muscles of our bodies.  Since the dawn of exercise, core workouts have been a big part of what we are told for aesthetics to helping with back pain.

Let's look at two things commonly prescribed and used core exercises can do to our back and aesthetics.

The chart below highlights two exercises, crunches and supermans.  Both are commonly prescribed exercises for the core and back.  As you can see by the chart both are pretty high for excessive pressure on the spine.

The images below show what can commonly happen when we do 'crunch' type exercises. If you look to where the arrows point, the abdominal area is not getting smaller or flattening.  (Which we are told will happen.) Rather, it is pushing out.  This pushing out is your abdominal contents, like your intestines, being pushed up into your abdominal wall.  This is caused by the...