Upper Back Stretches that Relieve Stiffness – Dr.Berg

If you have upper back stiffness, consider giving these unique upper back stretches a try.

hey this is dr. Berg today we’re going to talk about the shoulder joint and how to make it very flexible one of the challenges with having shoulder pain is that it holds a lot of its stuck energy and it keeps your neck and traps very very tight a lot of people have that I’m going to show you some great stretches to make your shoulders very symmetrical and very very loose and less stressful but the way I’m going to do it is very counterintuitive and it’s not taught in schools so this is something I just learned from doing it on thousands of patients so I think you can use these techniques now it does help to have someone else do this on you you can sort of do it yourself so we’ll just have to adapt if you have someone around the house you can have them do this but I want you to get the principle of how this works so the first thing we’re going to do is we’re just going to check the range of motion on the shoulder and there’s a lot of different motions that we can test the first thing we’re going to do is we’re going to check the internal and external rotation so we’re just going to take her arm and we’re just going to kind of go down this way okay we’re going to internally rotate this way and if you notice the shoulder goes forward like here so that’s not good so let’s check this side here you see how this one moves nicely so she can go all the way down this way look at that all the way and you can probably even do this on the floor with your arms down to compare left or right so we want to check first down this way and this way so you just have someone take this arm out like this and you just rotate it and see which one is restricted so we’re not looking for weak muscles we’re looking for tight muscles which are basically short muscles all right so now if the shoulder is not moving this way the way we’re going to stretch it is the opposite way now this is different because if I keep stretching like this is this going to be like a rubberband the way the muscles work is anytime you move a muscle go ahead and just like like do this okay when she’s moving this muscle when she goes up this is contracting okay in order for this to contract and move this one has to relax at the same time so when she triggers this one on this one automatically turns on so they’re on the same circuitry on switch off switch okay so then when she pulls it out she’s contracting this muscle and this one’s turning off so anytime we have a muscle that is constantly in the state of tightness or contraction it’s on so we can either stimulate the opposite muscle with pressure or we can actually stretch the opposite muscle okay so now if this muscle is not going down this way we’re going to be stretching the opposite way this way so I’m going to stretch all the way here and then relaxed stretch for a second relax so all I’m doing is stretching in the the opposite direction that’s all so if I do this for about ten times stretching it really good she’s going to start being able to stretch down here much better see how that works okay now the next range of motion we’re going to check and I just want to just first do the range of motion so we’re going to check going back this way okay and going back this way and this one seems to go back nicer this side is contracted now she lays on her back so we can actually take the arm right here and then go back this way and right here and just see how far this one goes back and then this one right here so I mean we’re just talking about subtleties but if you lay in your your back and this arm only goes down this far we know there’s a problem with this shoulder so if that problem let’s have you sit up again face the camera so if this shoulder doesn’t go back okay then wel will stress the opposite way going inward this way so we’ll stretch it stretch it stretch it stretch it stretch it and it’s nice to have someone do this on you and then it’s going to go back further and further and further okay so so in other words you just put the person in the range of motion and then stretch the opposite way so the next thing we want to do is we want to take the arm out here and just kind of raise it up as high as it she can go this way right here and we’re going to compare this way you see that so what’s happening on the right side it doesn’t want to go up because this muscle down here is too tight okay so what we’re going to have to do is we’re going to stretch the opposite muscle okay so it’s kind of like you have to think backwards so what is the motion the problem is when we stretch down this way her body is in the way we can’t go further than this we can’t chop off the body so what we’re going to do is that she’s going to grab her arm on the opposite side let’s grab your wrist there like right here yeah so we’re going to grab this and she’s going to pull this down yes and she’s going to you can lean this way here and you’re going to stretch this right here and so what she’s doing is just doing this right here we’re stretching this one so we’re stretching all these muscles here which basically will allow her arm to go all the way up okay all right so we’ll just do the that’s just showing you the opposite now the other thing we want to do is we want to take her elbow right here and bring it inward okay good now let’s compare it with the other side which one is tighter right okay so with this one we simply going to do the opposite way going this way right here now if she’s going tight right here that means all the rotator cuffs back here are tight so we want to stretch the front part of the muscle I’m not going to tell you the muscles and confuse you but just all these muscles are tight so she could even go on a door like right here and then stretch these muscles back okay or I can just take her arm and stretch back this way relaxed stretch here relaxed stretch here relaxed stretch here okay so that would be how to go forward now the other one is we’re going to go backwards so we’re going to just bring your arm back this way and let’s bring this one right here which one’s tighter there the right is tighter okay so then we’re going to stress the opposite let’s bring your elbow bring your hand grab your elbow and then pull it forward one two three so that’s we’re going to stretch the opposite okay so we’re just going through all the range of motion now the next thing we want to do since the shoulder is connected to the back we want to tuck the head forward and slouch right down you feel any tightness or your upper back okay now go back this way horse back is that easier yeah okay so what she’ll do is she’s going to actually do extension stretches she’s going to stretch back this way and if you have a ball or something you can do this on this is good stretch back back back and that’s going to allow her to go forward you see see how I did that okay now the other thing that I want to do is I’m going to scoot around with your feet over here basic yes right here okay so now you got two bones right here called the scapula bones and they connect to all these muscles here called the rotator cuff switch rotate this so the first thing we do is going to shrug the shoulders on the right good now shrug on the left which one’s easier the left one is easier so this one doesn’t want to go high so guess what she’s going to do she’s going to push it down one two three four you could do it have someone do it manually to and really stretch that because the scapula creates a lot of tension and these muscles right through here okay so now we went upward now we’re going to actually just take it and go forward we’re going to push it forward and bring this forward I guess you what you could do is you can take your arm go forward this way right here yeah okay and then bring the other one yeah you see how you’re you’re you’re stretching thes