0:02 This is Brent, President of B2C Fitness, and in this video we're doing our static, 0:07 self-administered, upper trap stretch. Now, the stretch is going to involve the neck 0:12 and just like what we talked about in the levator scapulae video, anytime we 0:16 are stretching the neck there are some very sensitive structures in the neck 0:22 that we need to be aware of. The brachial plexus, the little fine muscles that help 0:27 stabilize our cervical spine, as well as the vertebral foramen which house 0:33 are our nerves that are coming out there, as well as the transverse foramen which 0:37 has our vertebral artery. All of these things can be affected in a stretch, and it 0:42 could have a very negative outcome. Now, with all that being said, this is very 0:47 safe providing that you are aware, you're cautious, and you use a very small amount 0:53 of force when creating over pressure to take your muscles into a lengthened 0:57 position, providing you don't yank on the neck like you yank on a hip (you 1:03 shouldn't be yanking on a hip), but you're using less force on the neck than 1:07 you are on the hip, this technique is totally safe. I'm going to have my friend 1:12 Laura come out and I'm going to help you determine how we're going 1:17 to stretch our upper trap. Now, first things first, the upper trap is accused 1:25 way more than it is guilty of being short and overactive. It will anteriorly 1:32 tip our scapula which could be part of our upper body dysfunction, but 1:35 generally this muscle is weak. What most people accuse of trap tightness, is 1:42 actually our levator scapulae trigger points and tightness. So we need to be 1:47 kind of aware, maybe try our levator scapula stretch first, see if we get 1:53 improvement, before we accuse and assume that the trap is guilty of also needing 2:01 a stretch. Now, the trap itself goes from lateral clavicle, the lateral portion of 2:09 the spine of your scapula into you're ligamentum nuchae, as well as your 2:15 external occipital protuberance up here in your head, and the spinous process. 2:20 That has a very important effect on how we're going to stretch this muscle as 2:24 opposed to the levator scapulae. In the levator scapulae it was the transverse 2:28 process, so to lengthen that muscle we had to turn her head that way, that would 2:34 turn the transverse process away. In the case of the spinous process, to get 2:38 lengthening, we have to turn her head toward the same side as the muscle 2:42 we're stretching to get the spinous process to turn away. This setup is 2:49 almost identical to the levator scapulae stretch, so if you are comfortable 2:52 with that technique, this is going to be a breeze, we just have to remember the 2:56 rotation is in the opposite direction. So, I'm going to have her stabilize. Once 3:02 again, we stabilize the scapula to make sure that we posteriorly 3:06 tip, depress the scapula, make sure she doesn't go into an extension here at 3:12 the lumbar spine, she's still keeping drawn-in. We're not grabbing really 3:16 hard here, we just either grab the back of our thigh or the bottom of our 3:19 gluteal fold there just as a little bit of stability, I don't want everything active here. 3:24 She's then going to pull herself into lateral flexion, a little bit of flexion 3:30 this way, and then if this is the side that we're stretching she's now turning 3:35 this way. So in the levator scapulae stretch I had her hold here and push 3:41 that way. I'm going to have her take her hand and kind of cup the back of her 3:45 head a little bit so that she can she can push into 3:52 lateral flexion and flexion this way, but also help with the rotation this way. Now, 3:57 if you do these two stretches you should feel a difference. Levator 4:01 scapulae I should be here, it's a long thin muscle this way, the trap 4:07 should be more anterior and should be felt more diffusely across the top of 4:14 the scapula. You feel that? -Yeah definitely. Good. So I'm going to show you a couple 4:19 more angles so you see how the stretch works out. So, if I have her 4:26 stabilize this side, set up just like the levator scapulae stretch, make 4:31 sure she's drawn-in, not pulling herself into extension, she's going to laterally 4:37 flex, she's going to flex a little bit, and she's going to rotate, once again, 4:43 towards the side of the muscle that we're stretching, that's ipsilateral 4:48 rotation. So I'm going to have her, once again, grab the back of her head towards the top 4:54 so that you can turn this way and still pull in lateral flexion and flexion. 5:01 And then the last view I'll give you is the lateral view here. So you're going 5:06 to pull down into depression and posterior tipping, go into lateral 5:12 flexion, that is probably still the most important joint action, the second most 5:16 important joint action is going to be that rotation, but I let her go into a 5:19 little flexion first, and then once again cup the back of her head towards the 5:25 top so that she can still push into lateral flexion and flexion, but then help 5:30 aid in rotation towards the side of the muscle. Now, with all static stretches, 5:35 you're going to hold for 30 seconds to 2 minutes waiting for that golgi tendon 5:41 organ to override our muscle spindles, create something called autogenic 5:46 inhibition and get a release so we can then lengthen that fascial network that 5:52 is part of our muscular system, and get this muscle to adaptively lengthen, 5:57 fixing, hopefully, the postural dysfunction that we've assessed, and 6:01 we're now trying to improve upon. I hope you enjoy the stretch, I hope you 6:04 get some great results, and I hope you see a big change in your movement 6:08 patterns. I'll talk with you soon.
