Sebastian Brosche · 10 min · 1,001 words
Previously titled: Video 5 - Neck Program
Hi guys and welcome back to the last day of neck week. Today you need any kind of pillow and your sack of balls. Start sitting on your pillow, maybe with your back against the wall. And place your hands on your knees or your lap.
Move your shoulders around a little bit and make sure you're sitting in a comfortable position with your hips and your spine. We're gonna do figure eights with our neck. So first drop your right ear towards your shoulder. Relax your shoulders, relax the side of your neck.
It's the same we did the first day except that we're not pulling our head. Now turn your right nose down so that your nose is close to the shoulder. And then keep looking to the right as far as you can and then tilt your the back of your head towards the left shoulder. And then slowly roll your ear towards the shoulder.
And then look down with your nose towards the shoulder. Try to go as far to the left as you can. And then tilt up again so that the back of your head is rolling towards the shoulder. And then find this gentle rhythm where you look down and then you lead with the back of your head.
And then you roll slowly down looking down. Keep going from side to side without leaning forward. Keep lifting your chest. But move your head in a way that stretches and relaxes your neck.
Not too fast. Try to breathe while you're doing this exercise. And since you're going super slow you can try to take it out the last 5, 10, 15 percent. Go further than you would dare to go in jiu-jitsu.
Nothing unexpected can happen here if you go really slow and you are aware of the warning signals that the body maybe sends you. So your muscles and your nerves are sending signals to your brain all the time. So if you learn how to listen then you will be perfectly safe. Stop at center and just move your shoulders and head around a little bit.
And let's switch that we do the opposite. So first we lead with the nose now. So nose dives down and then you look up and then dive over to the other side. So same sequence just reversing directions.
Now we're leading with the nose. Twisting and turning from side to side. Breathe. Couple more.
Stop at center. Place your fingers behind you and push your head back into your hands as much as you can. So pull your hands into your head and push your head back as much as you can. You should feel your neck shaking here.
Five, four, push more. Three, two, one and slowly release the pressure. And get down on your back with your head against the wall. You need your pillow behind you.
This is a TV watching position for your neck. So what you want to do is you want to get as sharp of an angle as possible for your neck. So you're pushing your chin into your throat. So you're basically just chilling here but letting the weight of your chest stretching your neck.
So depends on your pillow you might have to prop up a little bit so that your shoulders are off the floor. Please don't die here and choke yourself to death. Maybe find a way to keep the opening in your throat but also try to relax and let the weight of your body stretch your neck. I do this in bed when I have stiffness in my neck and it always feels amazing.
Take five more here. Slowly lift up. Move your head around. One thing you can do is you can place your knuckles under your jaw and push your jaw into your hands just to reactivate your throat muscles.
Alright we're gonna take our balls out of the sack. Go free balling today. So free balls start at the lowest part of your spine. So lift your hips and place the balls right above your sacrum.
On the lowest part of your spinal extenders and then move your elbows out to the side and lift the shoulder blades off the floor and just rock a few times on your lower back here. And then move your hips down so that you're at your lower back now. Roll on the balls and if the balls are slipping just place your hands there and reposition them. You might have to do that often.
Now move the balls up a bit higher on the lowest part of your upper back. Rock and roll. The higher we get the easier it's gonna get. Lift up more balls right under your shoulder blades.
Now you can go slower because now the whole spine is off the floor. Oh my God. You have to keep your head off the floor so you're strengthening the front of your throat. Then roll all the way up to the upper part of your neck.
Massage the balls into your traps, your rhomboids. Support your head if you need to. Let the balls work their magic. And go all the way up towards the top of your traps and lay still.
Then roll even higher so that the balls are almost on your neck. You can keep your hips lifted for more pressure. And then lay down and put the balls right under the base of your skull. I saved the best one for last.
So use your balls as a pillow. You can rock your head a little bit from side to side to find that perfect spot where your balls can support your skull. And here is the pose where we're gonna finish the neck week. You can do shavasana here with stretch your arms and legs out and let your head rest on top of your balls.
Stay here for as long as you like.
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