Easy Table Exercises for Neck & Shoulder Pain!

This article is a transcribed, edited summary of a video Bob and Brad recorded in April 2025. For the original video, watch Easy Table Exercises for Neck & Shoulder Pain!

Brad: Alright, you're wondering what we're doing here. Well, this is a good example of how physical therapists are literally experts at using household items for very good exercises to create good posture, less pain, et cetera. So here we have Mike as our patient. We have a table here, a kitchen table. We'll show you some excellent exercises. These can be done very easily. Anything Mike?

Mike: All you need for these are a kitchen table, like we mentioned. A towel would be handy and possibly a ball.

Brad: There you go. What are you eating?

Mike: Well, nothing on this dirty plate.

Brad: It was a Green Bay Packers plate. Mike is a Viking fan. That's why he was disgusted. Anyway, here we have a table. This is a typical height of a table. Nice chair. So what we're going to do is work on things that are going to make you more functional. Suppose you have problems reaching up into a cupboard because you have tight shoulders. If you have pain in the shoulder or in the neck or even headaches, this can be a good exercise.

Mike: The first one we're going to do is to address your shoulder. So if you're having some shoulder, neck pain or discomfort, oftentimes what can be the culprit is actually your shoulder blade itself or your scapula. So in order to do this, you need a tabletop. If your hands do not slide nicely on it- mine are kind of sticky right now, so they don't slide the greatest- take a towel and place it over top here. You can do palms down, or you can kind of do a neutral thumbs up. Choose what feels best for you. And what happens is, as I start to lean forward, this is actually bringing my shoulder overhead. So I'm allowing the pressure of the table to relax the shoulder muscles as I go forward. So oftentimes, people have limitations lifting their shoulder above their head with pain.

Brad: Yeah. So Mike's shoulder blade, scapula, is actually rotating, sliding across the thoracic area or the rib cage, giving it the mobility that it needs. And that's very important because sometimes the scapula can actually get stuck or depressed. This exercise will help release it. Very important. And the other really good thing about it: if you have a messy table, you'll wash the table as well. The other thing we do want to talk about is that this is going to help with the muscles right up here, the levator scapulae, which is that tight muscle that can cause some headaches and neck pain. It's going to help loosen that up as well.

Mike: Now if you only have one painful side, you can just do this with one arm. You don't have to do it with both. And you can kind of mess around with the angles a little bit and see what feels good for you.

Brad: Yep, there you go. A little motion is really good. Now the next thing we want to talk about is that we're going to actually not use a table so much, but we do have the towel here. So fold it up, and we're going to work some neck pain specifically and some shoulder pain around the neck, as Mike has it. Lower on the neck is usually better, but I want some support. And then, Mike, can you show them this stretch?

Mike: So what we're going to do is pull down towards the floor with the towel. That's super hard. And then I'm going to work on extending or looking up towards the ceiling, working on neck extension. And you can just gently go back like this.

Mike: You can hold it for five to 10 seconds and do repetitions. Do 10 repetitions of this. You can also try to mess around with moving the towel around different locations depending upon where your pain might be. Or you can even bring the towel up with you and cradle it a little more if that feels more comfortable.

Brad: I do want to put out a little warning. It's possible there may be occasional time where some people, when they do this, get lightheaded or dizzy. If you feel any of those symptoms, you simply stop. It is not an exercise for you. And if that's the case, you may want to see the doctor and find out if there's any unusual reason for that. Mike, let's talk about posture. Now, this is a really aggressive but comfortable posture with the ball. Mike invented this about 10 years ago.

Mike: This is a baby ball. I probably could use a larger one. There you go. I want this one. Anyway, if you could take a ball or something small, you could even possibly roll up a towel. And what you're going to do to work on your posture: if you're working at a desk or your kitchen table, you're probably sitting leaning forward with rounded shoulders. You're not in very good posture. So what we want to do is go the other way into extension. So place the ball behind your back. You can go mid-back; you can go a little higher up; find the spot you need it. And then we're going to work on just extending our spine backwards. And it just feels good to stretch. And you can add a little bit of arm movement in there as well. Even some W's.

Brad: Well, I do want to mention you don't have to use a ball behind your back because that is pretty aggressive. As long as your chair is at about this height, if it goes up to your head like one of those tall back chairs, this doesn't work so well. A lowered firm back chair will work, and you'll find a nice stretch with that as well.

Mike: Did we hit 30 minutes yet? No, the timer's still running.

Brad: No, the timer is still going. We have to keep talking. Alright, so we have another video.

Mike: Neck & Shoulder Pain FAST Relief!

Brad: For 55 years and older. Yeah, it's a nice video. We'll go into some other options to do this type of treatment to yourself.

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