20 Jun Pilates for neck pain

A quick test to know if you have neck pain or are at risk of neck pain is to find out if you are using the right muscles to hold your head up. Click the image to the left to see where to place your hands to feel your neck muscles.

Check if you are using the outer muscles to hold your head up instead of the inner muscles of the neck. A sure sign is whether your neck feels tense – you may also feel stiff in the shoulders as well.

Many of us have problems due to sitting in a chair all day, or you may have a problem due to some trauma or accident.

Physiotherapist Sally Buratowski has been working with patients with neck pain for some time. Sally has developed some great exercises that will be on her Neck Pain DVD soon.

Typically if you have suffered some trauma to your neck the first step would be to get professional help to ensure all is ok.
Sally checks the range of movement, whether there is any pain and asks some exploratory questions like how did it occur.
She may then apply some physio to loosen up the neck muscles and help them release.

Neck Pain Exercises

The Pilates based neck pain exercises involve slow movements of the neck whilst in correct posture.
There may be cushions or a round rubber tube placed under the spine to help engage the correct muscles.
Once you have learnt these simple techniques you can apply them as means of recovery and prevention of neck pain.
The key is to strengthen the inner muscles of the neck to ensure the larger outer muscles are not being used to support your head.