My New DVD on how to fix your own neck pain is out now!
So why is your Neck always so stiff and Painful?
Neck pain and especially stiff necks are not difficult to treat once you know how ( ie.remove the major causes of your neck pain and stiffness.)
I am about to show you how simple it is to treat your neck pain and stiffness both quickly and easily.
Let me repeat this: Helping neck and upper back pain and stiffness is generally very easy when you know how.
One of the biggest problems with the overwhelming majority of neck pain and stiffness is that the causes of your problem are never completely removed. You continue to aggravate your neck each and every day and your neck is never given the chance to settle down.
If you had a sore thumb because you kept hitting it constantly with a hammer every day would you see a chiropractor to help it?
Would you go and get prolotherapy treatments? Massage? Acupuncture?
Would you see the doctor to get some painkillers or muscle relaxants?
Buy a special contoured pillow for it? A new mattress maybe?
Of course not.
You know that it is only when you stop causing your pain by hitting your thumb with a hammer that you can ever hope to be pain free. Once you have removed the cause (hitting your thumb with a hammer) will your thumb get better.
You would feel like an absolute fool if you went to get treatments for your thumb to try to stop the pain and spend thousands of dollars in therapy, wouldn’t you?
Your neck is no different. You Must Remove The Causes of Your Neck Pain.
Not until you stop causing your pain in your neck will your neck get a chance to become pain free. And until you remove the major cause of neck pain you are spending your hard earned money on trying to fix your pain whilst still hitting it with a hammer so to speak.
And this ladies and gentlemen is why the majority of people have chronic neck pain and stiffness and/or continually suffer from recurrent bouts of neck pain.
Here is a quick Neck and Upper back Pain tip:
To avoid getting that aching pain between your shoulder blades from using the mouse make sure that your mouse is not too far away from you. Your upper arm should be hanging vertically from the shoulder joint, resting alongside your ribcage, then you stop using your muscles in your upper back and shoulder blades-and voila! The pain that you have been suffering for so long (those knots that become so painful behind your shoulder blade) will no longer be there because the constant stress and contraction needed from them will have vanished.
But Now let’s take a look at
Your Aching Neck and Upper back Pain and a visit to the Doctor
When it comes to neck pain or any pain for that matter and you go to see your doctor he will most probably give you some nice relaxing massage for about forty minutes, put on some heat packs to ease muscular tension, talk to you about your posture and the effect it has on neck pain, show you how to do some self myofacial release techniques to ease neck pain and give you a whole host of other wonderful information about how you can remove the causes of your neck pain to help you become Pain free.
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Yeah right.
If you are reading this and have seen a doctor for your neck pain this is probably more akin to how your visit went:
You walked in and waited for what seemed like eternity, you finally finish waiting and get out of the ‘waiting room’ because its now your chance to see the doctor. Sure, its now 30 minutes later than your scheduled appointment but that’s what is considered normal when seeing a doctor. You have to wait.
Then you see the doctor, he may press around your neck somewhat for a few moments, tell you that you have lots of tension and you are given a long list of drugs to take, muscle relaxants, pain killers and anti inflammatories.
You are told to ‘see how that goes’ and if you are no better you will be then prescribed stronger pain killers, perhaps now steroidal ones and maybe even some new ‘nerve healing’ drugs.
Have any of the drugs addressed a cause to your pain?”
No. It has been a hit and hope attempt at removing the symptoms.
But never mind, because your now off to the Specialist!
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If the drugs don’t work, then you will probably be recommended to see an orthopaedic surgeon or specialist who will ask for an xray or, if you have good insurance or you can afford it, schedule an MRI to see what’s going on.
What’s the problem with getting an MRI?
The problem with getting an MRI or an xray is that it can show degenerative changes and/or disc bulges but this too does not necessarily mean that your pain is coming from these structures.
You could have a MRI and it shows disc bulges at C6-7(for example) and he recommends that you have surgery when the pain may be coming from several trigger points in your sub occipital muscles (for example)- This is where knowing the secrets to helping your neck and upper back pain comes in.
In fact, 85% of people over the age of 60 have degenerative changes in their necks to some degree. It’s simply wear and tear which may or may not be causing you pain-and more often than not is not causing your pain. When you look at the major cause of neck pain on any website you will see consistently that the major cause is postural.
But Let’s take a closer look at the use of painkillers
Let us take a look at what you are doing when you take painkillers to help your pain.
If you have pain coming from poor posture(the most common cause) which is straining your ligaments, pushing your discs against nerves and causing chronic muscular pain and tension then what is a pain killer doing to help this?
Nothing.
Is a pain killer getting to the cause of your problems?
No.
In fact, it’s allowing you to get away with your bad habits which is making your problems worse in the long run. The same goes for those of you who suffer from lower back pain. If your lower back pain is caused from sitting badly in your chair at the computer and/or lifting badly then taking a pain killer is just allowing you to mask the bad habits and is most probably setting you up for a big injury sometime pretty soon.
Pain is your warning system that something is wrong!
And what are you doing to your body’s natural warning system that is there to help you?
Deadening it.
I don’t know about you but I think this is just a little bit daft!!!!
By Learning my common sense approach to having a pain free neck you will finally be off the rollercoaster of recurrent bouts of neck pain for good!
Think about this for a moment:
You are driving along in your nice Mercedes car and your oil light comes on whilst you are driving. You know that the oil light coming on is your cars way of telling you that the engine has a problem-it’s the cars warning system so that you don’t do major damage to your engine which will cost you thousands more if you don’t do something about it. So what do you do?
Of course you go to a mechanic to see what is wrong. However, your mechanic says he will tape some masking tape over the oil light on the dash board so that you can no longer see the light anymore. He tells you to come back in two weeks if you still have a problem.
Now, you may not know much about mechanics and cars but you do know that putting masking tape over the oil light so that you can no longer see the light has not fixed the problem and that you will still have this problem in two weeks. You also know that if it doesn’t get fixed properly( by fixing the cause) you will do some major damage to your engine. This will then cost you thousands!
Hmmm..
Anyone see a pattern emerging here?
“But my car is worth thousands of dollars and I wouldn’t put it at risk. It cost me a lot of money”, I hear you say, and I wouldn’t be that stupid I hear you tell me.
Hmm..
Ever wondered just how much you have spent on your body over the years? Food, clothing, education, health-shall I go on?
Your body is the most sophisticated, most expensive thing you own. And you are happy to just tape over your body’s oil light time and time again by taking pain killers and hoping that the pain will go away.
There is a much better way.
Remove the causes of your pain. Fix the problem rather than masking the symptoms…..
Buy DVD Now $39.95
For this you need to know what is causing your pain first and foremost rather than guessing and hoping right? Right.
As I said before;Neck pain is commonly misunderstood, but I am going to show you just how easy it is to fix neck pain without having to get numerous treatments, without hours of stretching, without lots of exercises and without pain killers or surgery.
I am also going to show you why getting treatments or doing exercises for your neck pain is generally a fruitless pursuit. You can seek out the purported best neck exercises but none of these will give you anything more than temporary relief at best.
Is this a magic cure?
This is not something magical, it has nothing to do with gimmicks or gadgets, it is simply about physics, the laws of gravity and your body mechanics.( But I can tell you that it will feel like magic once you are pain free from something so simple.) And it has worked successfully for thousands of people!
It is simple and straightforward and will soon make perfect common sense to you.
Let’s just recap:
No amount of Treatments, anti-inflammatories, exercises for your neck pain, yoga classes, Pilates, TENS, Ultrasound, osteopathy, Physiotherapy, Chiropractic, Massages or stretches will ever keep your neck pain free permanently if you do not remove the causes.
So let’s have a look at what is one of the major causes of neck pain.
Look no further than your forward head posture.
When you sit poorly and stand poorly you create stresses so great for your neck that it is virtually impossible for you not to suffer from neck and upper back pain.
Every inch your head travels forward of the correct postural position creates and extra 10lbs of weight on your neck structures. This means that if you are sitting here reading this without sitting properly( think-if you were to drop a rock from your chin would it drop onto your chest or onto the floor?) you are probably putting anywhere between 20-40lbs of strain onto your neck.
That’s 20-40 pounds of stress on your neck structures for…um, how long have you been sitting at the computer today?
I want you to imagine how long you could hold a 40lb bag of potatoes with an outstretched arm and how much it would hurt if you had to do it( if you physically could) for two hours. Your arm and shoulder would not only be screaming in pain but they would also hurt for days after that.
This is what you do each and every day if you sit and stand in poor posture.
Your neck and the 20 lb bag of potatoes quiz
Take it a step further. If i asked you to hold that bag of potatoes every day in the same manner your arm would be in constant pain especially whilst you were holding it. If you wanted to stop your arm hurting what would be the best way to stop it?
1.stretch your arm and shoulder by doing special exercises
2. get chiropractic treatments, massages, acupuncture or various other treatments spending thousands of dollars
3. remove the cause of your pain and stop holding the bag of potatoes with an outstretched arm
Of course, by now you should know that number 3 is correct because if you continue to aggravate your shoulder, continually straining your joints and muscles by holding this 20lb bag of potatoes you will continue to have pain.
You don’t have to be a rocket scientist( or a physical therapist) to know this. You wouldn’t spend you hard earn’t money on treatments to try to fix your pain when you know your pain will be fixed by simply fixing the cause of your pain. You would simply stop causing your pain right?
What else dont you know about what is aggravating your neck each and every day?
This is why neck exercises will not work whilst you are continually harming your neck and upper back each and every day. This is also why it is crazy to get treatments and expect to remain pain free if you continue to hurt your neck. And of course this is exactly what happens to people. They either suffer from constant neck pain or recurrent bouts of neck pain.
How many of you are receiving regular chiropractic treatments or massages whilst still spending your day( and nights) in a forward head position?
But it’s not just at the computer you do this.
Think about when you drive, when you read, when you watch your favourite program on TV.
Now you know why the famous Mayo clinic also states that a prolonged forward head posture leads to long term muscle strains, disc bulges and neck pain.
I can tell you that i do not get any treatments for my neck. I have not spent thousands of dollars on an ergonomic chair-I sit on a $15 chair.( its very easy to have a $1500 ergonomic chair and sit slouched forward in it)
I have not suffered from neck pain in years.
You too do not have to suffer from neck pain.
How to start helping your neck-it just makes perfect sense
If you are sitting poorly, standing poorly or doing you daily activities using poor bio-mechanics you will be injuring your neck time and time again. When a person is sitting slouched with the chin jutting forwards ( known as a forward head posture) they are continually straining the ligaments, muscles and discs. The ligaments surround the joints and are responsible for supporting the discs that lay between the vertebrae. After prolonged poor postural habits the ligaments can actually tear. This can then cause pain and if the person continues to have poor posture the ligaments will not heal properly. If good posture is performed this gives the ligaments a chance to heal.
Think of cutting your elbow, if you continue to bend your elbow you continue to re-injure your cut and the elbow doesn’t heal. However, if you stop bending your elbow, the cut will have a chance to heal and will get better quickly. This is the same with your ligaments and soft tissues of your neck; stop slouching and putting your neck into a forward position and they will get a chance to heal finally- thus removing your pain.
What about a pinched nerve?
If you damage your ligaments further though, they can lose the ability to hold your disc in place and the disc may eventually bulge or even herniate and can press on a spinal nerve causing pain or numbness or pins and needles in the shoulders, arms and/or hand.
The good news is that this too can be helped by adhering to good postural habits and (if needed), a little bit of self therapy and (if needed) also by doing some quick specific neck exercises. (The exercises can fast track your healing by re-aligning the disc and taking the strain off the soft tissues.)
Incidentally, many people I see who think they have a pinched nerve because they have radiating symptoms in their arms are actually not suffering from a pinched nerve after all. Quite commonly I see clients who have trigger point referred pain instead (which is also easily helped.)
What about degenerative disc disease and arthritis?
You have been told that you have both or either of these but this too does not necessarily mean that the pain is coming from this condition. In fact, I have seen many clients over the years who told me that their pain could not be helped because they had arthritis only to find that they were soon pain free after receiving my advice simply because the pain was not coming from the joints at all. I see this all the time; people have been given a diagnosis from an MRI or Xray and believe that they have to live with their pain. This does not have to be the case!
What about whiplash?
The same applies. If you have been suffering from chronic neck pain after a whiplash injury is it from your injury itself? Are you sure? Now that you know that every inch forward of a central postural position creates an extra 10 pounds of stress on your neck, think how that must feel on a neck that has had a violent injury such as a whiplash. I have treated many clients over the years who thought that they had to live with their ‘whiplash pain’ only to find out that they almost magically removed their neck pain by removing the daily stresses on it.
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How to dramatically decrease your risk of whiplash
As more and more people drive cars these days we also inevitably are seeing an increase in car accidents. Whiplash is a common injury and females are 2 times more at risk than males and they are also more likely to develop long term symptoms. It is not well known why this is the case but it is thought that males have stronger neck muscles than females which may help and also because women tend to sit slightly more forward in their seat. When sitting further forward the head travels further before it hits the headrest. Another interesting fact is that drivers tend to have more serious neck injuries than the passengers. This is thought to be because the passengers tend to sit back in more of a reclined position with their heads against the headrests.
Now I have mentioned the head rests a couple or times in regards to whiplash injury but lets take a closer look at these things that we tend to think of as luxury items. I guess it’s because of their names which make us think of them as nothing more than something to rest our heads against. However, they are so much more than that.
As I have mentioned in another article when a rear collision occurs the head is thrust backward and into extension of forces up to 12G. A head rest or better termed, head restraint is designed to reduce that rearward motion of the head greatly decreasing your chances of a whiplash injury. With rear end collisions being so common it’s perhaps one of the most important safety features you have in your car.
So what height should your head restraint be at? It should be at head height that means your center of your head should meet the center of the head restraint. You should check yours the next time you decide to go for a drive and spend the time to position it correctly. It’s too late after a crash occurs. A head restraint that is too low allows the head to propel back and OVER it. You also don’t want your head too far forward. It should be no more than 4 finger widths from the head restraint. If you can’t do this comfortably you may want to invest in a car head support for better protection against neck injuries. Research has shown you will decrease your chance of neck injury by 40% with a correctly positioned headrest.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) told automakers the head restraints in their passenger vehicles will have to extend higher and fit closer to the backs of people’s heads. For the first time, the new standard addresses the back set. Head restraints will have to be within about 2 inches behind the head.
Also, if you know your going to get hit try to decrease your risk of injury. If you have your head or body turned during a collision it can greatly increase your chances of a significant injury. Keep your eyes on the road and your head straight. If you know you’re going to get hit, then reduce the distance between your head and the head restraint by moving your head back. The car neck pillow reduces the headrest distance and increases your level of safety.
Crashes involving whiplash neck injuries happen at lightning-fast speeds, but if you have time to prepare: Put your head and your neck all the way back so that you’re in contact with the seat back and the properly adjusted head restraint. Straight-arm the steering wheel and get a good grip. If you are stopped, put your foot on the brake as hard as you can. Look straight ahead, not in the rearview mirror – don’t have your head turned at all. Put your neck back slightly so your eyes are looking level up at about the top of the windshield. Scrunch your shoulders up toward your ears and then brace.
I hope you never have to be involved in a car collision but at the very least I hope this will help you if something does happen. Happy motoring!
Sleeping positions for Neck Pain
As a general rule, whether you sleep on your side or your back, you want to make sure that your neck is not getting pushed forwards, backwards or sideways. It should be fairly level. If you are sleeping on your back you definitely do not want too many pillows that push your head into a forward position like we have seen in poor sitting postures. This is very common and is a common reason why people wake up with neck pain. I have talked at great length in many of my other articles about the importance of keeping your posture with your head on top of your shoulders, not out in front of them. You need to imagine that your head and shoulders should be like a golf ball sitting on a tee. Then your head sits on top of your spine which reduces the stress and strain on your neck muscles and ligaments enormously. The same goes for sleeping, just because you are now horizontal it does not mean that you can now have your head pushed forward again.
If you sleep on your back you want a pillow that keeps your head in a reasonably level position with your body. You don’t want your head sinking backwards into the pillow nor do you want it pushed forwards.
If you lay on your side to sleep you don’t want your head sinking too far into the pillow nor getting pushed up. If you are lying on your side you want the feeling that your head is pretty much in a neutral position as opposed to being bent to the left or right. Imagine if you were told to stand or sit with your head to one side for 8 hours, by the end of the day it would feel very sore wouldn’t it. This is what is happening if your head is kept in poor position all night from a bad pillow or wrong pillow.
When it comes to the question of whether you should sleep on your stomachs I want you to do this little experiment. Do it carefully though. I want you to turn your head to one side as far as you can and now tilt it backward a little. Now imagine if I pushed your head a little further around and a little further backwards and you had to keep that position for an hour or so and then we would do the same on the other side and continue this for eight or so hours. This is the position you have when you are on your stomachs with the pressure of the mattress or pillows pushing your head further. Your head is fully rotated and pushed backwards. If its not comfortable to do standing up its definitely not going to be comfortable for your neck lying down either.
Furthermore, your discs swell up overnight as they fill with fluid which puts even more intra discal pressure on the spine and its surrounding ligaments adding even more stress. Therefore, make sure that you have a good pillow and i have written which pillows are good for your necks in a previous article. As far as sleeping on your stomachs goes, this is most definitely not healthy for your necks!
Neck Surgery- your last resort
There are many forms of neck surgery that are performed these days and as always neck surgery should be considered a last resort. Once you read what is involved in each of the operations and the complications that may occur I hope you will make a concerted effort to use the advice I have written about to keep your necks and their discs in good health. You just don’t want to be going down the surgical road if you can help it. And you can normally help it.
If surgery is recommended it’s generally for these reasons
o To decrease the pressure from nerve roots caused by a herniated disc or bone spur
o To stop the movement between two vertebrae or a spinal segment such as in severe degenerative disc disease
o And to remove pressure from the spinal cord as in the cases of cervical myelopathy and spinal stenosis
As usual you should become empowered with as much information as you can when it comes to someone using a scalpel on you so I have written this article to give you an overview of the various types of surgeries and the problems that can arise.
You could have to have decompression surgery or fusion surgery. Many times these two operations are performed together because the decompression surgery can make the area unstable thus a fusion is performed as well. Depending on your type of problem the surgeon may decide to do the operation by entering the front of the neck or by entering from the back of the neck.
At times the surgeons use bone grafts which can either by taken from your hip when they do the surgery of they can get bone grafts from bone banks.
The anterior spinal fusion is much more common and they may remove the disc and place bone in between the vertebrae where the disc was. Then the vertebrae and the new bone graft fuse together over time creating a spinal fusion.
The posterior spinal fusion is where they enter from the back of the neck and the bone is placed on the back side of the vertebrae. This type of surgery is rarely done and most commonly only for fractures of the spine.
You may also have plates and screws placed in your neck to hold the area still so that the bones can fuse together.
A discectomy is used very commonly these days and this is where they remove the disc. They remove the disc that is impinging on the nerve root to relieve the pressure. Here they make a cut beside your windpipe and move the muscles out of the way to get to the vertebrae. Then they get an x-ray done to find out which disc is the problematic one and remove it all the way back to the spinal column. If there are any bone spurs on the vertebrae they will remove those as well. Of course, extra special care is needed not to damage the spinal cord. Then generally they will fuse the vertebrae as mentioned above.
You may have been recommended to have a laminectomy. This will normally be give if your diagnosis is from spinal stenosis. They need to make the spinal canal larger and remove any bone spurs that may be pressing on the nerves. Just as is the case with discectomy meaning ‘removal of the disc’, laminectomy means ‘removal of the lamina’. However, surgeons don’t tend to do complete laminectomies if they can help it because the spine tends to tilt forwards and can also cause other problems like facet joint instabilities further down the track. Another preferred option, is to cut only one side of the lamina and bend it open allowing more space for the spinal cord and spinal nerves.
There is another way to help people with spinal stenosis ad myelopathies and that is to remove the front of the spinal canal. (The lamina is the rear part of the spine). What they may do here is remove the large part of several vertebrae including the discs in between, then they fill it with bone again, surgically hold it together with plates and screws and you then will have an apparatus to keep you from moving your neck so that the bones can fuse. This is called a corpectomy.
The complications
Now if all that isn’t scary enough, what then are the complications? After all, surgery is invasive and let’s face it, things can go wrong. I want to stress once again that this should be your last resort because apart from the complications, there is no guarantee that you are going to be pain free after the operations.
You need to speak at length with your surgeon so that you are well aware of the problems that can arise because when they do occur they generally can be serious.
First of all, as aforesaid, you may have the surgery and still have the pain. This may mean back on the operating table again for more surgery.
As with any operation you need anesthesia and this in itself poses risks. You will probably be put under general anesthesia (which means being put to sleep) and there are an array of complications that can occur including dying! This is a complication you don’t want.
There is the risk of infection. As with any surgery when you open someone up you have the risk of having them become infected. If your bone becomes infected you may need more operations for them to drain it.
You have the risk of having your blood vessels damaged because they have to work very closely to your blood vessels and arteries that travel through your neck and into your brain. The carotid and jugular are right next to where they work. It is possible to do damage to these. It’s not likely that this will happen but its worth knowing that it’s a possibility.
You could have nerve damage. The nerves to your vocal cords are also close by and they could become damaged which could lead to your voice being hoarse although it will normally recover unless it is too badly damaged.
There is the risk of having spinal cord damage because they have to work so closely to it although again it is highly unlikely but a possibility.
One of the complications that can happen more commonly is that the graft displaces and then you may need another operation to replace it.
And finally there is the problem of non-union. This is where your fusion doesn’t fuse. If you have no pain the surgeon may just leave it but if the fusion hasn’t occurred and you are in pain he may want you to have a second operation.
So you see that there are many possible complications when it comes to neck surgery just like any other surgical procedure. Some of these above are extremely unlikely to happen but its better that you know before you have the surgery so that you can make a sound and knowledgeable decision based on all the factors.
Rotator cuff tear exercises
neanderthal man posture- a sure fire way to tears in your rotator cuff
If you are slouching your thoracic spine is hunched forwards, your neck is in a protracted position (head forward position) and then this leads to muscle imbalances and pain. In short, your chest muscles become too tight as do your frontal neck muscles and the opposing muscles become too long and weak. This leads to your shoulder blades rounding around your rib cage getting further away from each other at the spine. If you can imagine that the distance between your two shoulder blades should be about three inches apart from each other, well they literally drift apart making that space further as you keep hunching forwards at your computers, steering wheels, eating your breakfast etc.
What’s the problem with having my shoulder blades drifting apart?
So now you have your shoulder blades getting further away from each other which means the muscles that should hold them in their place are getting lengthened and weaker and the muscles in front of your chest are getting shorter and tighter (the opposing muscles). This is where things get messy for your shoulders. For a moment let’s forget about the problems slouching does to your muscles, ligaments and discs in your lower back and necks and let’s just keep focused on your shoulders themselves. If your back is now rounded making your chest too tight this also pulls your shoulder inwards. They are now rotated too far inwards(internally)! Now you are looking at a head on collision with your humerous (arm bone) mashing your rotator cuff tendons.
A quick test to see if your shoulders are rotated inwards
A very easy way to check is to stand with your arms at your sides. Now look down at your thumbs. Do they point forwards or point inwards at each other? They should be pointing towards the front. If they are pointing more towards each other, or worse, you are looking at the backs of your hands when standing there and your thumbs point sideways towards your midline, your shoulders are too tight and rotated inwards.
What to do to help your internally rotated shoulders
So now you know that your shoulders are inwardly (internally) rotated which means your chest muscles are too tight which means that your shoulder blades will more than likely have been pulled too far apart which means problems for your shoulders! At least 90% of shoulder problems will have problems with the shoulder blades, they are vital for good shoulder mechanics. So to help this problem we need to stretch the tight muscles and strengthen the weakened ones to get good balance again.
You need to start stretching out your chest muscles, both pectoralis major and minor and strengthening your middle back and shoulder external rotators. It makes sense really doesn’t it? Your shoulders are too far internally rotated which means that the internal rotators are too tight and shortened leaving your external rotators too long and weakened.
Therefore, stretch your pec. muscles and do the ‘I’ve got no money’ exercise.
The ‘I’ve got no money’ exercise
Here is a great exercise to strengthen the middle back and external rotators of the shoulder to get those shoulders working better again.
Stand upright with your arms by your sides and now bend your elbows with your palms face up as if you were about to carry a large tray. Have the insides of your elbows locked against your ribs. Stand tall and retract and depress your shoulder blades. In other words, before you start the exercise you want to contact your shoulder blades ‘down and back’. A nice way to think of this is imagine that you have a pencil between your shoulder blades that you want to keep in place with your shoulder blades. Make sure you are not shrugging your shoulder blades though! The motion is ‘down and back’ not ‘lifting up and back’. Now that you have put your shoulder blades in good position you start by rotating your hands away from each other to the sides but keep your elbows on your ribcage! Then return to where your palms are back in front of you again as if you are holding a tray.
Do this 6-8 times 3-4 times a day. Remember that once you have stretched your chest muscles and done this exercise you should then attempt to sit and stand in good posture throughout your day in everything that you do. Three minutes of exercises a day will do little to help you if you spend 10 hours a day of slouching at the computer!