Neck Exercises

I've been asked to share the exercises I was given to do by The NHS physio I saw after being referred by my GP for osteoarthritis.

My symptoms were decreased mobility left & right and up & down in my neck, with stiffness and pain, plus being woken in the night in pain and having to support my head into a new position with my hands as it was too painful to use my neck muscles.

The exercises are in 2 parts:
2 to increase mobility
1 to strengthen the neck muscles

Mobility

Side to side
Sit upright in a chair looking straight ahead. Put the index and middle fingers of your right hand on the right side of your jaw. Use your right arm to turn your neck to the left as far as you can so the movement is powered using your arm muscles not your neck and shoulder muscles, then return to the central position so you're looking straight ahead again. Repeat using the left arm turning your neck to the right.

Up and down

Still sitting upright and looking ahead put your thumb under your chin and push upwards with your thumb using your arm muscles rather than the neck and shoulders so you end up looking up as high as possible without moving your eyes, then return to the central pisition looking straight ahead. Next put your hand flat on the top of your head and pull down with your arm to get your chin on/close to your chest. Again return to the central position looking straight ahead.

with both mobility exercises the neck and shoulder muscles must stay as relaxed as possible.

Aim to do the up and down exercises on 1 day and the side to side on the next if you can

Strength.
This is to strengthen the shoulder muscles and should be done every day if possible

Stand upright, legs slightly apart hands down by your side. With a dumb bell in each hand lift the dumbells upwards using the shoulder muscles NOT the arm muscles, the arms must remain hanging straight down and relaxed. Then lower the arms to the start position

Do the strength exercises once a day

Initially do each of the exercises 10 times. For the strength exercise initially use a 1kg weight - a 1 L plastic pop bottle will do.

Build this up gradually, I was told to do this a month apart between consultations to 15, 20, 25 and finally 30 repetitions for each exercise. Once at 30 after another month if you feel strong enough you can increase the dumbbell weights to 2kg each. The physio said there was not much point to increase the weights beyond the 2kg

If you don't have time to do the up and down or side to side mobility and the strength exercises each day or are not feeling like doing both prioritise the strength exercise.

if I think I've over done things I will then have a day off or just do the strength exercise. It's a bit of suck it and see which works best for you. My mobility is now far better than it was and the pain when turning is much reduced, as is the night time neck pain. It's a chronic condition, so there's no cure but it's far better than it was and I know what to do to manage it. I find 1 ibuprofen tablet and 1 cocodamol help on the odd occasion I'm suffering more than usual if for instance I'm going for a ride or playing golf, but this isn't something I take regularly.

I was also told this was something I needed to keep doing as if I stopped and reverted back to how I was before, any recovery would take longer and wouldn't be as good as I'd managed so far.

here's the dumbells I use.

https://www.argos.co.uk/product/7636738?clickPR=plp:14:43

 

Thanks Joe, I've just read my original post and noticed an error, I don't do all 3 exercises each day, at the most I do the strength exercise, plus one of the mobility ones.

 

No probs @Sandi T though I think it might be best to ask your doctors if it's okay to do my exercises before you go ahead, incase there's a possibility of doing some damage to your nerves. At least you're a bit further down the path to hopefully a full recovery and as you say some have it worse than us. Take care