60 Second Stretches to Get Knots from Shoulders, Upper Back, & Traps
- 6 days ago
- 13 min read
This article is a transcribed, edited summary of a video Bob and Brad recorded in January 2024. For the original video, go to https://youtu.be/sVHEk2lHjNE
Mike: Are you tired of those nagging shoulder knots that just don't seem to go away?
Brad: Well, you're in luck, because today we're going to show you some 60-second relief techniques that can, look at that, get rid of pain, knots, and all that tightness that we really don't like.
Mike: So, we're actually going to take a trip down memory lane first and go back in time to when Bob and Brad presented a lot of good information on how to get rid of these muscle knots. But make sure to stick around after, because we've got some bonus tips for you.
Brad: That's right. So, here we go. We're going to get ready for the trip down memory lane. Sam, are you ready? Sam's never done it before. So, get ready.
Mike: He might throw up.
Brad: Woo, woo, woo, woo, woo.
Bob: 60-second stretches to get the knots from your shoulders and your traps and your upper back, you know.
Brad: It's kind of the tension area of the body for a lot of people, right?
Bob: It shows up there, doesn't it?
Brad: Yep.
Bob: So, and we know you don't have time for this, you don't have time for pain.
Brad: Right.
Bob: So, we're going to give you just fast ones you can do, you know, throughout the day.
Brad: It's not fun; it wastes time. It gets you ornery.
Bob: Right.
Brad: We don't need that.
Bob: First one, Brad, is just a simple one. This is the one you can do throughout the day. Not only does it kind of release the tension a little bit, but it also puts you in a good posture. So, what you're going to do is you're going to bring your shoulders up, you're going to bring them back, and you're going to squeeze them together. One, two, three, four, five, and relax. Up, back, squeeze together, one, two, three, four, five, and down.
Bob: All right, next one, Brad. This one's a little more complicated, so you're going to have to follow along, okay?
Brad: Yeah, I'll do it.
Bob: So, you're going to elevate the shoulder, bring it back, bring the neck back, ear to shoulder, and then turn away, and then tighten while you're doing it.
Brad: So, it's tightening all the muscles that are already tight. And the idea is that if you tighten them up a muscle.
Bob; You maximally, you fatigue it out. Yeah, you're trying to fatigue it.
Brad: Then it will relax afterwards.
Bob: Okay, I'll do this one more time on this side. So, you bring the shoulder up, back, neck back, ear to shoulder, turn away, tighten.
Brad: You're turning away from the shoulder.
Bob: Yeah, yeah. You gotta make the face too, Brad.
Brad: And make the face.
Bob: Okay, so we're going to do the other one now. Shoulder up, back, neck back, ear to shoulder, and tighten. Yeah. There are a lot of little turns and twists.
Brad: We'll have a test on that next week.
Bob: All right. Another one is, again, this one works for posture, but also, a lot of times, the knots are coming from the neck. And so, we want you to do some chin tucks. We know we've shown these a million times, haven't we, Brad?
Brad: Well, at least millions.
Bob: We sound like a broken record.
Brad: Yeah, the old standby.
Bob: Yeah, chin tucks. And then you're going to go ahead and work on some extension, too. Because a lot of times, that'll help relieve it. And if not, if that doesn't feel good, you might do it with a towel.
Brad: You can go up like that.
Bob: Yeah, it may not seem like it, and it may not be immediate, but you keep doing these, and you may find out over a day or two that it starts taking the knots out of your shoulders.
Brad: Right.
Bob: And if nothing else, it's good for your neck, and it's also good for your posture, so.
Brad: If, for some reason, you do that and you get some sharp pains or get some other unusual pains, then it may not be for you, but for the majority of people, it's going to be fine.
Bob: Now this is the one I've said many times. This is the one that's worked for me. And especially if I start getting some pain up in my upper trap, I do the chin tuck, and then I bend to that side, and that's all I do. And I do it repeatedly, you know, like I'll do it every hour, you know, 10 to 15 times.
Brad: And I know, I have a feeling that people are going to say they're going to do that, but they say yeah, but it's stretching the muscle on the left side.
Bob: Yeah, and that's not the idea. We're working on the joints of the neck on the right. And that may be what is sending the pain down into your neck.
Brad: Exactly.
Bob: Well, I wouldn't do any of these if they really start to hurt. Like I wouldn't be doing these into the pain range. And these, too, if this makes it worse, stop.
Brad: Right.
Bob: And you might even try the other direction of that.
Brad: I mean, you could go a couple of times, and it may be irritable, but after that, it should start clearly improving.
Bob: Right. You want to say, " Oh, that is the answer, isn't it? That feels better when I do that."
Brad: Put a smile on your face.
Bob: All right, next one, Brad. This is one you probably can't do in the office very easily. I don't know, maybe I don't know what your office is like. Maybe you can do it.
Brad: I've got a plinth.
Bob: We're going to do cat and camel here.
Brad: Well, some people are going to call this something else, but we're sticking to cat and camel on this, right?
Bob: What do they call it?
Brad: Well, I always get confused, and I always apologize to the yoga people, but we're going to call this cat and camel.
Bob: They have a name for it, huh?
Brad: Right, we're doing it wrong.
Bob: And to really excessively do it, you want to go ahead and go head down and then head up like this.
Brad: Yep. It's kind of hard to see here with Bob's shirt, but if we pull it down, you know, he's getting that arch in the back. So we're getting a full range of motion throughout the back.
Bob: Yeah, quite often some of those knots can be coming from the mid back, the thoracic area. So you want to go ahead and do that. I would say even extensions, you know, the hallelujah stretch. We should probably have a ball, though, shouldn't we? Here you go.
Brad: Oh my God, Bob, why?
Bob: You were hoping you didn't have to use it, right?
Brad: He doesn't always tell me, so I could get the real ball. I always have to use the one that's therapy for Bob, though, because he knows the Packers are going to win and beat the Vikings this year.
Bob: They're a football team, in case you don't know.
Brad: This actually works well with the Packers ball.
Bob: Yeah. I told you. It's actually a good ball for it.
Brad: One that won't work well is like a basketball or something hard. They need something with some squish in it.
Bob: This actually is a really good one for knots, Brad, because you can work it up and down the spine and get the different areas of it.
Brad: Exactly.
Bob: So it works out quite well. Next one. Let's go ahead and do the wall ones. Again, this works on posture, and believe it, you know, quite often posture is the problem with the knots.
Brad: Right.
Bob: So this is tightening up all the muscles, strengthening the muscles, and hopefully, maybe giving you some relief. We can just do wall angels. So, you're going to bring them up and then down. It's tightening all the muscles.
Brad: This doesn't mean that Bob is an angel anyway, but you know, it's good to try. See, you're also getting those shoulder blades.
Bob: Yeah, it really is stretching everything, too. I'll tell ya. These feel better than you think they do, Brad.
Brad: Oh, I believe it, Bob.
Bob: Try it.
Brad: Yeah, I'll try it. Because I've got those tight shoulders, you know,
this is pretty challenging for me. I should probably do this more. I've been working on my pull-ups, Bob.
Bob: Yeah, those are great. I actually like the feel of these.
Brad: Yeah, it definitely works well. It's a good, good option.
Bob: Another one, you can just put your hands behind your head, elbows to the wall, and you're going to go ahead and stretch like this.
Brad: This is a really nice one for that thoracic area right there.
Bob: Yep, it gets that area. Again, you find out which ones work for you, and those are the ones you do.
Brad: Right, exactly.
Bob: Which ones do you like? Do you have the ball and the sock, Brad?
Brad: Oh, of course, Bob.
Bob: You want to show that one? Rather than whip it at me.
Brad: So what we have is a lacrosse ball or a massage ball. A tennis ball works just as well. Some depends on what you like. A lacrosse ball or massage ball is a little harder, a little more aggressive. But the reason you put it in the sock is not to use it for a weapon, but to put it on your back. And you have to put it over that muscle right there.
Brad: Get it over that trigger point and between the wall, and that trigger point is the ball, and the sock is just so you can position it, and once it's there, you don't need the sock. And right there I'm on it. And once you get on it, you can feel it.
Bob: You can kind of massage the area like that. Or you can just put the pressure on it. And hold it.
Brad: Stop talking, Bob. I'm really hitting the spot right now.
Bob: It really does. It gets the spot.
Brad: Let's go to the next one. I could be here all day.
Bob: Next one, foam roller. This is a really nice foam roller from OPTP. Did I get that plugin good, Brad?
Brad: Yeah, that's really good.
Bob: It's a little softer than a foam roller. It's the softest one I've seen. A different material, too.
Brad: I think they make one a little softer than that. That might be the medium density. I think they have a low one, too.
Bob: This is like a rubber almost. So you can definitely work things out. You can lift up the butt and really work, you know, the upper shoulders here and work it down into this range into here.
Brad: They make a higher density. It's a little more aggressive, and some people do like that.
Bob: But do you do this one, Brad? Do you just lie on the roller?
Brad: Yep. I like that lying one. It's very relaxing.
Bob: And this, by the way, is also from OPTP; it's called the pro roller arch. And this works nicely for this type of activity.
Brad: I will do the roll just like you did, Bob, on my upper back.
Bob: Sure.
Brad: And this is why I like the three-foot one, because this is one of those things that's when things are, you just want to relax and let the posture go back like this. And I usually go without the arch.
Bob: Yeah, you don't even need the arch, do you?
Brad: There are people who are going to find that that's a little too far down on their head, and putting the arch in there is more comfortable.
Bob: Yeah, and you would actually look better without it.
Brad: Oh, thank you. No, for me, I like it down like this. I can do my chin tucks a little bit there. And I'll just lie here and listen to the music or whatever for, you know, for a couple of minutes at least.
Bob: This is good for thoracic outlet syndrome, too, by the way.
Brad: Just let's the shoulders go back and keep that spine in good alignment, so.
Bob: All right. A couple more products we thought we'd finish up with, you know, that it may be helpful. This is the Backnobber, I believe. And there's also Thera Cane. We're not, you know, particular to one type of cane,
Brad: They both work well.
Bob: Yeah, this, I really like these things. I keep one around the house. In fact, we have one of the Thera Canes around here, and my other therapist was just saying that he thinks nursing came and got it to use. You can hit the spot and even work on turning while you do it.
Brad: Yep.
Bob: It seems to help. I know you like to really lie down and crank on it, don't you, Brad? Like you get underneath like this.
Brad: Well, yeah, I don't have one of those at home, but if I want to get into something, that's what I'll do.
Bob: Like this. You can really leverage it.
Brad: Lay right down flat once, Bob.
Bob: Well, I'll let you do it. I'm not sure how you do it. Oh, I see you're getting your low back on that one, too.
Brad: Yeah, but it can go either way. But you know, it just takes a little bit. I mean, you got a lot of leverage there, wow. This is much more aggressive than the ball on the wall. But if I hold that there for a while, it's starting to relax well. That's the key to this stuff, okay.
Mike: So, we are back in the present, and we have a bonus tip that actually helped Bob's shoulder pain more recently. And this advice comes from our friend Rick Olderman, who is a physical therapist and kind of taught us these lessons. So, the important thing with shoulder pain and shoulder blade pain or muscle knots in here is that you want to elevate your shoulders up and get them in a relaxed position. Notice when I'm sitting here with the armrest low, or even in my lap, you could see how much tension I have in my upper trap here pulling on my shoulders.
Mike: This is going to cause some muscle knots and discomfort in these areas. So what we want to do is raise your armrests if you happen to have an adjustable chair. This will take the tension off of it. You can see the difference a lot if I'm like this right now, this is easing any shoulder pain or tension, and can help get rid of those muscle knots as well. But some people don't have these chairs.
Brad: Right, and of course, we're talking about working at a computer workstation where your hands are up on the keyboard for long periods of time, and that's when it really adds up, and have head forward posture and all those things can really create knots that are no fun. So what do you do if you have a chair with armrests that do not elevate? You simply go to the bedroom, take a couple of pillows, and fold them in half. This works, it's very comfortable, and you're going to use a soft, cushy pillow to elevate that shoulder and take the same stress off that Mike mentioned, using the system he had with a nice work chair that already has that. And you put that in there, and they're nice and comfortable.
Brad: Now, if you find this really helps, as it did with Bob, then it's a matter of modifying your chair. I think Bob actually took some soft foam pads and put them on his armrest. He duct taped them on, actually.
Mike: He was a tall giant, so he needed more height than me. I'm just a normal folk here. But yeah, it also works well in recliners as well. If the armrests are too low on a couch, you could do the same thing. You may not have to tuck it in like that. If I'm on my couch, sometimes, and this one bothers me sometimes. Yeah, I'm getting older. But I'll put a pillow on the armrest, and I feel good.
Brad: There you go. So, the whole idea is to elevate, take the weight of the arms off those muscles in the shoulders. Makes a humongous difference. Easy to do. Very cheap and nice, nice, nice.
Mike: You know, one problem I have, though, is when I do this, then the cats want to sit here.
Brad: Well, the cats have priorities, so you'll just have to live with it.
Mike: I'll have to suffer. Anyway, if you want to check out more videos, specifically having more stretches, watch "7 Upper Back Stretches For Pain Relief."
Brad: That's right. So get a little stretching action going with those muscles. Have a good day.
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