1Cervical Rotation
- Lying on your back with your neck relaxed.
- Push through your cheekbone to assist your neck to rotate/turn.
- Only push as far as you feel comfortable – don’t force it.
Try and keep relaxed through the shoulders with some deep belly breathing at the end range
2Cervical Rotation
- Sitting upright in a chair.
- Use the long edge of a towel or a pillow case and sit it across the affected level as indicated by your therapist, with one edge of the towel/pillow case in either hand.
- Apply a comfortable but firm pressure by pulling the ends of the towel/pillow case keeping the ends in-line with your eye level/height.
- Maintaining this pressure, lower one arm below your shoulder (this is the side you will turn to).
- Turn your head to look over your shoulder as far as comfortable, towards the side of the arm you just lowered – your other hand should follow your line of sight, always maintaining the same pressure.
- Repeat this exercise as instructed by your physiotherapist.
3Thoracic Extension
- Sit on the ground and place 2 x pillows or a bolster lengthwise behind your tailbone.
- Sit directly in front of this and lower yourself back over the pillows/bolster.
- You can start with your knees bent up.
- Ensure that your head and neck are comfortable – you may need another pillow or towel under your head to encourage good posture for your neck.
- Reach your arms out to the side with your palms facing up.
- Breathe down to your stomach and relax your shoulders.
- After a few minutes you can then change your leg and arms positions to open up the body further – this is demonstrated in the video.
- You can alternate between leg and arm positions as you like in this position.
- Complete as per Physiotherapist guidelines.
5 x cycles of deep breathing in this position. Particularly helpful at the end of the day or after prolonged work/ bent over.