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This is Brent, President of B2C Fitness, and
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in this video we're doing our static,
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self-administered, upper trap stretch. Now, the stretch is going to involve the neck
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and just like what we talked about in the levator scapulae video, anytime we
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are stretching the neck there are some very sensitive structures in the neck
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that we need to be aware of. The brachial plexus, the little fine muscles that help
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stabilize our cervical spine, as well as the vertebral foramen which house
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are our nerves that are coming out there, as well as the transverse foramen which
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has our vertebral artery. All of these things can be affected in a stretch, and it
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could have a very negative outcome. Now, with all that being said, this is very
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safe providing that you are aware, you're cautious, and you use a very small amount
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of force when creating over pressure to take your muscles into a lengthened
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position, providing you don't yank on the neck like you yank on a hip (you
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shouldn't be yanking on a hip), but you're using less force on the neck than
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you are on the hip, this technique is totally safe. I'm going to have my friend
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Laura come out and I'm going to help you determine how we're going
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to stretch our upper trap. Now, first things first, the upper trap is accused
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way more than it is guilty of being short and overactive. It will anteriorly
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tip our scapula which could be part of our upper body dysfunction, but
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generally this muscle is weak. What most people accuse of trap tightness, is
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actually our levator scapulae trigger points and tightness. So we need to be
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kind of aware, maybe try our levator scapula stretch first, see if we get
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improvement, before we accuse and assume that the trap is guilty of also needing
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a stretch. Now, the trap itself goes from lateral clavicle, the lateral portion of
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the spine of your scapula into you're ligamentum nuchae, as well as your
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external occipital protuberance up here in your head, and the spinous process.
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That has a very important effect on how we're going to stretch this muscle as
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opposed to the levator scapulae. In the levator scapulae it was the transverse
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process, so to lengthen that muscle we had to turn her head that way, that would
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turn the transverse process away. In the case of the spinous process, to get
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lengthening, we have to turn her head toward the same side as the muscle
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we're stretching to get the spinous process to turn away. This setup is
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almost identical to the levator scapulae stretch, so if you are comfortable
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with that technique, this is going to be a breeze, we just have to remember the
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rotation is in the opposite direction. So, I'm going to have her stabilize. Once
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again, we stabilize the scapula to make sure that we posteriorly
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tip, depress the scapula, make sure she doesn't go into an extension here at
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the lumbar spine, she's still keeping drawn-in. We're not grabbing really
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hard here, we just either grab the back of our thigh or the bottom of our
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gluteal fold there just as a little bit of stability, I don't want everything active here.
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She's then going to pull herself into lateral flexion, a little bit of flexion
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this way, and then if this is the side that we're stretching she's now turning
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this way. So in the levator scapulae stretch I had her hold here and push
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that way. I'm going to have her take her hand and kind of cup the back of her
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head a little bit so that she can she can push into
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lateral flexion and flexion this way, but also help with the rotation this way. Now,
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if you do these two stretches you should feel a difference. Levator
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scapulae I should be here, it's a long thin muscle this way, the trap
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should be more anterior and should be felt more diffusely across the top of
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the scapula. You feel that? -Yeah definitely. Good. So I'm going to show you a couple
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more angles so you see how the stretch works out. So, if I have her
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stabilize this side, set up just like the levator scapulae stretch, make
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sure she's drawn-in, not pulling herself into extension, she's going to laterally
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flex, she's going to flex a little bit, and she's going to rotate, once again,
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towards the side of the muscle that we're stretching, that's ipsilateral
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rotation. So I'm going to have her, once again, grab the back of her head towards the top
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so that you can turn this way and still pull in lateral flexion and flexion.
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And then the last view I'll give you is the lateral view here. So you're going
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to pull down into depression and posterior tipping, go into lateral
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flexion, that is probably still the most important joint action, the second most
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important joint action is going to be that rotation, but I let her go into a
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little flexion first, and then once again cup the back of her head towards the
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top so that she can still push into lateral flexion and flexion, but then help
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aid in rotation towards the side of the muscle. Now, with all static stretches,
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you're going to hold for 30 seconds to 2 minutes waiting for that golgi tendon
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organ to override our muscle spindles, create something called autogenic
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inhibition and get a release so we can then lengthen that fascial network that
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is part of our muscular system, and get this muscle to adaptively lengthen,
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fixing, hopefully, the postural dysfunction that we've assessed, and
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we're now trying to improve upon. I hope you enjoy the stretch, I hope you
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get some great results, and I hope you see a big change in your movement