0:04 This is Brent of the Brookbush Institute, bringing you guys self-administered 0:08 cervical extensor release. These tight muscles, or these muscles that have a 0:12 propensity to get short and overactive right here in the back of my neck. I'm 0:17 going have Melissa come out, she's going to help me demonstrate some of the stuff 0:20 I've used in the past that wasn't particularly effective, as well as what 0:24 i'm using now. So i know a lot of us have had neck pain. I have to think that neck 0:29 pain is almost as common as low back pain, especially in those that work 0:34 behind a desk. I know all of us have tried a foam roll, because we all know 0:39 that foam rolling muscles that get very overactive generally feels good. But if 0:43 we stick a foam roll behind her neck, number one our head is not in a great 0:47 position, and then I think we've all kind of figured out that what hits the foam 0:52 roll first, is the spinous process of all of our cervical vertebrae, and those 0:57 cervical extensors actually exist in the trough between 1:03 the spinous process and the transverse process. So we need something 1:07 that fits in here. Now I've seen a lot of people try to fix that problem by going 1:13 to something like a tennis ball. But a tennis ball has a problem, number one is 1:21 one of two things usually happens, I usually either find that my clients and 1:25 patients do this thing, right so they roll away from the ball which then 1:29 takes pressure off, and now I don't have that pressure to get the release. Or they 1:33 do this thing and press into the ball, and now the muscles I'm trying to get 1:37 the release on, are active which means I'm never going to get a release. And then we 1:42 got a little more sophisticated with stuff like this, but even this has 1:47 problems because of the lordotic curve in the neck, unless you are a really 1:52 small person something like two tennis balls together, or two racket balls 1:58 together, just doesn't work very well for the cervical spine. And then I ended up 2:04 running across this. This is a 'twin blocks pro' from 'massage blocks'. Now I 2:09 know I don't do product placement very often, but literally guys this thing has 2:14 solved my cervical extensor release problem. Every patient or client I've 2:20 given one of these to, to take home to support their corrective exercise 2:25 program for cervical dysfunction, has raved about this product. I actually 2:30 have one of these in my workout bag, to help manage my cervical 2:35 dysfunction. And what you're going to see here is is there's two bumps right, so 2:39 these two bumps help me get around the spinous process right. So it fits right 2:45 into those two troughs, and then it has the height to get into that lordotic 2:51 curve. and we can start right up here, in those suboccipital muscles, and hold that 3:01 until it goes away, and Melissa is smiling, she's liking this product. The product is 3:06 also a little rubbery and a little soft, so it's not really really aggressive. 3:11 Sometimes I've seen products that people use for release techniques and they're 3:15 literally so hard that you can't relax. Well if you can't relax you're not going 3:20 to get a release, and the one I teach my clients and patients to do is they just 3:25 keep moving this thing down one segment at a time. So now I'll try it there, right 3:31 give them 30 seconds, 60 seconds there, and then move it down a little further, 3:41 alright. So now we're more in the mid-cervical spine now, and then we 3:46 can get pretty close, we'll call it the upper portion of the lower cervical 3:51 spine, maybe we're at C5 at this point. She lies her head back. Good, we get a 3:57 release there, and then we get a little bit more bang for a buck from this 4:02 product because it actually does this, right so now I take it off this base, and 4:11 I can keep right on going, on down the cervical thoracic junction, and it feels 4:20 pretty good all the way down to T3 to T4. 4:29 And what I think you guys will find is once again, unlike these products that 4:34 use like two lacrosse balls right, which almost don't give at all. This product 4:40 gives just enough that you can relax, you can get a release. I can tell you from a 4:47 physical therapy standpoint, I know some of my physical therapists out 4:51 there will agree, I also am less concerned with this product doing 4:55 something like displacing a rib as i get down into the thoracic spine. Some of 5:01 those products out there are definitely a little aggressive, and I've had some 5:04 people kind of kind of almost do more damage with the product than good. This 5:09 one we don't have a risk of that because it's nice and soft. We could actually use 5:16 that all the way down the thoracic spine probably all the way down to T8-9 5:21 without a problem. You get a lot of bang for your buck guys with this little 5:26 product. I think they're running about 45 bucks. So once again guys this 5:32 is self-administered cervical extensor and even the thoracic extensors release here 5:39 with the 'twin box pro' from 'massage blocks'. I'll go ahead and throw the link 5:44 down in the comments section of this video, and maybe we'll even throw an 5:49 annotation on the video at the end here so you guys can click on that. I'm not 5:54 trying to to push a product here, and I'm not getting paid by massageblocks.com 5:59 by any means to create this video. I just finally found a product that I really 6:03 like for cervical dysfunction, and I wanted to share it with you guys. I hope 6:07 to hear about some great results. We will follow this video up with some 6:11 cervical mobilization with the massage blocks, which I think you guys are really 6:16 going to enjoy. I'll talk with you soon. 6:25
