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This is Brent, President of B2C Fitness. In this video, we're going to do our static,
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self-administered, levator scapulae stretch. Now our levator scapulae is one of
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those muscles that gets over active and adaptively shortens in those people with
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upper body dysfunction.
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As well as those individuals with cervical posture dysfunction or forward
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head tilt. Now before we do this stretch, it involves the neck, and anytime we do a
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stretch for the neck, we need to be a little bit more cautious. There's some
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very delicate structures that can be affected in the neck stretch. Things
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like our brachial plexus, we have these little vertebral foramen that can impinge
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down on nerves.
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We have these transverse foramen that house something called a vertebral artery,
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that can also get pinched down on and affect blood flow to the brain. That
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would not be a positive thing at all, but what I'm about to show you guys is
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totally safe, providing you remember one thing. This stretch is not going to take
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the amount of force to lengthen a muscle that you would use on some of the bigger
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structures and bigger joints in our body. If we put the calf stretch on one
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end, taking a whole lot of force, you know and then the hip takes a little less force,
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of course, when we're dealing with the shoulder, we need to be a little bit more
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delicate, cervical stretches would be like way over here. They only
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take a really small amount of force to create a lengthening of that structure.
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I'm gonna have my friend Laura come out and help me demonstrate this exercise.
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Now, our levator scapulae goes from the superior angle of our scapula to the
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transverse processes, those processes that stick out of the side of cervical vertebrae 1
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through 4. Alright, so this muscle goes from here to here.
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I know you guys have felt this muscle before. If you feel right down here near
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the origin, you probably got a lot of trigger points, a lot of knots, a lot of
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painful spots. Alot of people attribute to the trap, usually is this nasty little
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levator scapulae. Now, you guys can kind of see how it would pull us into that upper
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body postural dysfunction, but let's see how it would pull on it to get it
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lengthened, so we can get it stretched out, get it to
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calm down. Alright, so this muscle does this- lateral flexion, ipsilateral rotation,
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and extension. All we have to do is the opposite to stretch.
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Alright, so she's going to go into lateral flexion, rotation, and just
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a tad bit of flexion this way, and then I'm going to improve the stretch just a
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little bit by having her stabilize her scapula, by kind of reaching down with
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this arm.
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She doesn't have to do it real hard, I don't want to activate anything. Just stabilize and
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reach down a little bit. That will depress and posteriorly tip my scapula. Then she
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can create a little bit of overpressure with this hand, by going to the back corner
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of her head, just with like either the weight of her hand, or with the pressure of her
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fingertips, create enough force to get a good stretch down here. Now, I'm going to show you guys a
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couple more angles you can see exactly what's this stretch looks like. If you go
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from the front,
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I think you guys have put together all those joint actions real quickly, because
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this stretch has a nickname. It's nicknamed "the pocket stretch." So if I have her
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depress, stabilize that scapula, she can hold on to the back of her thigh, or glute.
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And then I have her just look down into the opposite front pocket, let's say this is pants, head, pockets. All right so,
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she's gonna look right down here. She just did all the joint actions I needed her to do.
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She did some lateral flexion. She did some rotation. Just a little bit of
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flexion, and then she can use this hand to help her see the bottom of her pocket.
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She can hold onto that. One little pointer guys, because some people have a
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hard time feeling the stretch.
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Depress this scapula. All right, so you grab here.
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One thing I want you guys to know, it's probably the most important joint action
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of the three, to get a good stretch on this muscle, is to go into lateral
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Alright, so when I say there's flexion and rotation, she's not flexing like chin
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to her chest,
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she's just lateral flexion, rotation next, and then just a little bit of flexion. So
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you guys can see that angle matches up with the exact opposing angle of this
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muscle here. She'll then go ahead and put a slight bit of overpressure. Now, like all
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static stretches guys, we're going to wait 30 seconds to 2 minutes, or ideally until
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we get enough of that
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golgi tendon organ stimulus to give something called autogenic inhibition,
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which is going to be felt by us as a release that allows us to lengthen out
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that tissue a little bit farther. So once again guys, this is your levator scapulae
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stretch. We're doing a static stretch, so you're gonna hold it for 30 seconds to 2
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minutes. I hope you guys enjoy this technique and see a good improvement in your