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