This article is a transcribed edited summary of a video Bob and Brad recorded in May of 2023. For the original video go to https://youtu.be/4zLWc1NS7b4
Mike: Today we'll be discussing a common problem many people face as they age and it may be causing some pain in your neck. We are going to be talking about the neck hump.
Brad: That's right, we're going to help you understand three common causes of neck hump as well as how to reduce or eliminate it.
Mike: We'll be guiding you through three exercises and tips to help improve your posture and eliminate that pain.
Brad: That's right. So with a neck hump, there's a big problem. The number one problem is your posture may look like this like Mike is showing you right now.
Brad: The biggest problem even preceding this, causing this, is people are not aware of this unless someone at home says, "Mike, your head has forward terrible posture." My wife does that to me regularly, which is helpful for me. She does it because she loves me. So make sure your family members or friends let you know about forward head posture. It stresses the muscles, it stresses the joints. Some nerves can become pinched causing pain down the arm, and headaches. I can continue on with pain all day long and the neck hump certainly does not look good as well. We can show you ways to help you out with this and it's going to be not that difficult. All right, there are two hinging points that you need to understand to really get this correct and have a grasp on it. And that is here, it's the first joint at C7. That's where there's a bump at the base of your neck.
Brad: And then right below the skull, there's C1. And that's the second hinge. Now when those hinges are working properly, you have good posture, very little stress on the neck and everything is going very well.
Brad: Okay, so let's look at an actual human body. At C7, the first hinge is right here.
Brad: C1, the next hinge is right here. Those are stress points and they were worked properly. It's all good.
Brad: Now, Mike, demonstrate using the hinge on the first one. Flex forward. Okay, now that's not good. That's okay for a short period of time. Come back up to good posture. Now just flex forward at C1 or the top hinge, okay? And that's okay, that can be a good stretch. Here is the big no-no, and this is where the neck hump comes in. When you flex, the bottom hinge goes forward and the hinge on top goes in the opposite direction. We've got this down and the hump and then down. This is so common when you're on the phone, when you're at the computer, when you're driving your car, when you're sitting, or when you're watching TV.
Brad: Okay, well I made up a little posture or a little model. Bob worked with me on this idea. We've got Wilson, the tennis ball. The top ball is the head, the band represents the neck and we have the C1 hinge and the C7 hinge. The bottom ball represents the body. So if we have good posture, it's in line. If you want to look down, you can properly at the C1 hinge. If you want to just flex the lower one, that's okay. But here's what happens, is the bottom hinge flexes forward, the top hinge goes backward and things bind up causing that neck hump. We need to eliminate that and straighten things back up.
Brad: And look at his smile. Isn't that nice? So just think about these tennis balls. And poor Wilson, owie, owie neck hump. Oh, that feels better. So, "Ah." Better. "Owie, neck hump." Back and straight. Good.
Mike: So the first solution in neck hump is to hinge at the proper place like Brad was discussing earlier. So we're going to hinge at the top hinge versus the bottom hinge. Now to do this, you have to have some flexibility in your neck to be able to go to an upright posture like Brad is showing here. So if you can get to this posture, then you'll do this type of looking down that we're going to demonstrate here. So Brad, if you bend at your C7 to look down at your phone, that is a no-no. We're putting more neck hump stress there. Now if he were to start up right again and go at the top hinge and look down, this is what we want to try to do. Get that pressure off of that C7 or lower hinge region to help prevent that neck hump from getting worse.
Brad: Well Mike, what if a person has this posture and they're unable to get up into good healthy posture so they can work on the top hinge?
Mike: Well, we have a solution for you if that is the case and we're going to show it next. So if your hinges are frozen and you're unable to lift your head in the correct position, we're going to show you some tools you can try to use to get those hinges unrested and unstuck and try to get your neck back in the proper place. For this, you'll either need a pair of rolled-u socks or a soft tennis ball, and we're going to show you how to do it on the posture pad, which is also an option you can try. So to stretch out the lower hinge here, we're going to start with a rolled-up sock and you're going to place it right on the lower hinge muscles in that region.
Mike: So you're going to lay down typically on the floor. I'm going to show you on the mat for video recording purposes. You're going to take the pair of rolled-up socks, place them on that lower hinge area and you're going to simply try to relax. If you're tight in your neck region like I'm demonstrating now, your head is going to be off the mat. Over time, laying here for a minute or two, gravity will start to stretch these neck muscles out, allowing you to eventually over time, meaning weeks or months, get your head down to the ground. Now if this is tight or problematic early on, you can place a pillow under your head to get a little bit of support. Over time, try to go to thinner pillows and eventually you want to get your head to be able to touch the floor.
Mike: Now we'll show you another variation. You can use a tennis ball or a posture pad.
Brad: Okay, just a little more detail because this is critical. When we're trying to break the rust loose on that lower hinge so to speak, and at this point, if it's really tight and rusted in, we need to take your time, maybe take a pillow, fold it up so that you can relax so you don't have that pain in your neck because pain is going to make things tighten up even more. If this is comfortable, you'll lay like this for a couple of minutes. Maybe the next day you can actually put a thinner pillow in or open the pillow up like that, allowing that neck to go down, breaking things loose a little bit each day. In a few more days or a week or two, you may be down to without a pillow.
Brad: Now if your neck is tight and you see that your chin is up in the air, that's good. There's one final phase and that is to get your head from out to in so you can look straight. Now with this, I want you to think about, tucking your chin in to make a double chin right there. And that flattens the lower neck to get that perfect posture and then it'll be a little extra stretch.
Brad: At this point, your neck hump is pretty much gone lying down. Now when you stand up, you have to readjust or look at it maybe in the mirror, a family member or friend and say, "How's my neck hump look?" Hopefully, they're going to say, "What neck hump?" So this is the process as we go from hunched to upright. Mike started out hunched over now look at him. Your neck hump is gone.
Mike: Perfect.
Brad: Okay, a little side note. Sleeping posture with a neck hump, it's very critical. If you like to have two pillows or pillows like this because you're watching TV or whatever the case may be, this is a big no-no.
Brad: We need to get the head from being flexed. This is the lower hinges all being pushed forward. Pillow out, now that's a big change. That might be too much. Maybe the next step is two thinner pillows and then eventually get down to one thin pillow while you lie there. That way, all night long you are actually treating your neck hump, making improvements, and making it better in the morning. Mike, what say you?
Mike: I do this at home.
Brad: Say no more.
Mike: So an alternative option to the rolled-up sock would be using a soft tennis ball. So we pulled this from the posture pad. There are firm tennis balls and soft tennis balls. So start with the soft one, roll it up in a towel, and place it on the lower hinge, then do exactly what we demonstrated earlier. Brad is now going to talk about how to use the posture pad to get the same stretching effect on that lower hinge.
Brad: Right. So this posture pad, it's squishy, it's soft, but it's firm. The balls in here are for the advanced stretches. We're going to take these balls out actually and do it without them. We're going to lay this down. The carpeted floor works quite well actually. I am going to lie on my back so that my lower hinge is going to go right at this upper edge. It has a radius on it specifically for comfort, but yet it will mobilize those vertebrae. In other words, get them to move and stretch so you eliminate and get rid of that hump. It doesn't hurt. None of this should create any pain. If it does, you're getting too aggressive. You're going to have to move around and get that radius edge, that rounded edge right at the right spot. And now it's a little uncomfortable on my head and I can't go down, so we're going to put a pillow in there and I'm going to drop my head until it feels good. There we go. As my head goes down, it's stretching, stretching. And I'm reasonably comfortable in that position. I can feel it working at that upper hinge right below the neck with the neck touching the shoulders.
Brad: You can add a stretch, and this is critical, bring your arms up overhead. And now I can really feel my upper back extend. In other words, it's taking that hunch back away. It feels so good. So you can do this five to 10 times. Now if you have shoulder problems and this is painful, simply bring your arms up, whatever's tolerated, and think about extending and letting that head drop back. Do the best you can. If you have one shoulder that's tight and it just doesn't work so well, you can do it with one side if you can.
Brad: You're going to do the best you can, work with your body. If you look right here, I'm extending. In other words, lifting and arching the back right here to help that upper hump get "unhumped" if you will.
Mike: Another critical component of the neck hump is looking at the shoulder blades. So what we want to do is a lot of times they are depressed down, putting more stress going down, putting more pressure on that lower hinge. So we want to get the shoulder blades back in place with some stretches and exercises and posture corrections we'll be showing you to get more of an upright posture. So the first two exercises were with the upper part of the neck and this is more the lower region of the shoulder blade into the neck.
Brad: That's right.
Mike: So once you've completed doing the posture pad exercise or sock, whatever variation you're doing, if you're able to roll over on all fours, we're going to do this stretch next. Brad will demonstrate how to do it in a seated position if this is too hard of a position for you. So what I'm going to do, get on all fours, I'm going to bring my feet closer together and touch like this and then I'm going to push down into my palms. As I'm pushing with the downward pressure, I'm going to sit my buttocks towards my heels. This is going to help elevate that shoulder blade, putting it back into place, and getting more stress off of that lower hinge that we've been talking about in this video. Now you can kind of rock back and forth in a slow gentle motion. Maybe you can't go as far back as I can and that is fine. Just start with what motion you have. Eventually, over time, try to get down into this position. If you can, you can hold it for 10 seconds. Make sure to push down through your hands the entire time and just go slowly and gently because a neck hump is painful.
Brad: All right, now the alternative that Mike was talking about is you can do it in a chair that's not as aggressive. It will work, but you may need to work a little longer with it. Take your chair up to a desk or a table countertop. Your hands are going to go on there. You can slide your hands forward. If you have a chair with rollers on, it actually works really well. You can roll that chair back and you'll feel those shoulder blades come up and stretch. We're actually putting the muscles here on slack, that connect up to that hinge area, taking the stress off of there. Hold it for five seconds at first and come up. You can hold it three to five times. And if you want to hold it longer if it feels good, again, none of these should create any sharp pain, but just a nice stretch.
Brad: And I can feel that throughout my shoulder blades down here. There we go. I'm going to stretch things out, do a little noodling, that's just going back and forth like this and do that three to four times per day, depending on how it hurts. The first day you may just do it once. As you do it more, you'll do all these stretches a little more often. I'm starting to feel taller, straighter already.
Mike: Another tip to elevate the shoulder blades into the proper position again or get some tension off of them from pulling on that lower hinge area is to elevate your shoulders and your elbows when you're seated, when you're maybe watching TV or working at your computer. So to do that, you may have a good ergonomic chair that has elevating armrests, but if you do not and have one like this chair here, you can simply take a pillow, place it underneath your arm, and rest your elbow there. You want to get a one-and-a-half to one-inch elevation to take that stress off of that scapula and shoulder blade region. Taking less pressure on the hinge and neck pain area.
Mike: If this isn't high enough, you can always fold the pillow. Or you can also use a second pillow as Brad has there. Do you want to add anything to this?
Brad: Well, sometimes I like to just fold them in half and squeeze them between the existing armrest and your body right there.
Brad: And you'll feel the big difference in how these muscles relax as you put them on their pillows. Pillows work nicely because they are squishy, allowing you to relax more. It feels good. So if you're watching TV for a couple hours, it's nice to have the appropriate relief throughout the shoulders. And then you're also going to think about your neck posture. We're not doing that head forward. We're going to maintain that. Everything becomes more relaxed. Life is more reasonable and enjoyable.
Mike: Now we're going to get onto another option you can try as well.
Brad: I'd say let's go for it. Okay, so finally we just want to consider your posture overall. This is a really good mindset to correct your posture. Some people say, "Pull your shoulders back." That's not what you want to do. I want you to take one hand, put it on your sternum, your chest right here, and one on the upper stomach area, and think about lifting those hands up and out. So we're just going to go up and out here, and that puts that spine into that good posture. The shoulders will go where they need to go in a normal position. So it's here and here. Bring that out like this. And that also brings the chin in.
Brad: So it all works together. If you walk around like this and people ask you, "What are you doing?" "I'm checking my posture. What do you think?" Just kidding.
Okay. Now this may seem awfully daunting, maybe a little complicated, but take your time with it. Neck hump doesn't come in one day. It takes years to develop it. It's going to take some time to get over it. So work with these one at a time, particularly the stretch where we break that hinge loose, okay? So work with it over time. And I do want to say one thing in conclusion, stay healthy, stay balanced, and keep on moving. Mike, go ahead.
Mike: Also, let us know in the comments section what stretches worked for you. If you are experiencing neck hump or maybe some things we forgot that have worked, make sure to check each other's comments because we're all here to help each other out. Thank you for watching.
Brad: Thank you.
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