Video: 4 Foam Roller Exercises to Alleviate Neck Pain

Your Neck… This great thing that keeps your head upright and controls where you look.

Does yours ever get tight while riding your bike? Especially on those long uphill climbs??

Your neck is connected to the upper back and then upper back to the lower back. This entire system, your spine, works like a slinky. If your slinky is working great each part moves a little bit, for the sake of an example… 5%. If you have stiffness in a part of your slinky, then it is going to put stress on the other parts of the slinky. That would mean that part of your slinky would move 1% and other parts would need to take up the slack and move 7-9% causing you stress in these regions and also limiting your full movement as well.

Aka if your upper/mid back, your thoracic spine, is stiff then you will have stressed placed on your neck and on your low back.

For mountain bikers, our posture lends us to have more stiffness in our thoracic spine than other sports. This is increased even more if you sit a lot for work.




As you can see from the pictures, this can cause the bottom most part of your neck to have stress. But with a change in position or a change in mobility, you can decrease the stress placed on your neck.

**Sometimes you might not be stiff in this region, you might need more core/trunk strength. Today, we are going to go over how to improve your movement or aka mobility in your thoracic spine.**

There are a couple of ways of using a foam roller to help with mobility. These may be exercises that you have seen before, but make sure you pay attention to the details.

Exercise #1: Make a T



Objective
- To increase thoracic spine extension

Perform:
- 3-4 times a day
- Do for 3-5 min
- Before Riding to warm up for a ride
- Post ride to stay mobile
- After Sitting all day


Things to Note:
- Make sure to keep your elbows in front of you, to increase pressure on spine
- If you do this too much, and you are very stiff, you will get sore
- Can be performed with two tennis balls taped together or on the wall if the floor applies too much pressure

Exercise #2: Foam Roller Rocking



Objective:
- Increased rotation and extension of thoracic spine

Perform:
- 3-4 times a day
- Do for 3-5 min

Things to Note:
- You can raise your hips to get a better stretch to the uppermost part of your back
- Make sure to keep your elbows in front of you, to increase pressure on spine
- If you do this too much, and you are very stiff, you will get sore
- You can do this 3-4 times a day, to warm up for a ride, and post ride to stay mobile
- Keep your head relaxed

Exercise #3: Foam Roller Twist



Objective:
- Increase thoracic rotation while flexing the low back

Perform:
- 2-4 times a day
- 2 sets 20 reps each side
- Before Riding to warm up for a ride
- Post ride to stay mobile
- After Sitting all day


Things to Note:
- Try to keep your elbow straight on arm that is down to encourage more rotation
- Rotation of thoracic spine helps with extension of thoracic spine
- Can be performed without roller or with a ball
- Keep hips shifted back toward feet to stop movement from coming from your low back and to keep it in your thoracic spine
- Don’t hold the stretch, joints like movement in and out of the stiff region

Exercise #4: Child’s Pose with Upper Back Extension



Objective:
- Increase thoracic extension through entire region while flexing the low back

Perform:
- 2-4 times a day
- 2 sets 20 reps each side
- Post ride to stay mobile
- After Sitting all day


Things to Note:
- You keep hips back to lock down low back to make upper back stretch
- This isn’t the best if you have shoulder issues/pain
- Don’t stress your neck, relax it in the stretch
- Don’t hold the position too long, joints like movement in and out of the stiff region


About the Author:

Liz Koch, PT, DPT is a physical therapist that knows exactly what it is like to have pain. She has been to many PTs over her life, which directed her to obtaining her doctor in physical therapy after she became an engineer. She has been a mountain biker since she was a kid and has recently opened up her own clinic in Western North Carolina, Blue Ridge BioMechanics. She wants to share the knowledge that you don’t have to be in pain when riding and you don’t have to stop riding to get out of pain. She has focused this mission to Rad Mountain Biking Ladies on Facebook and through her online business, The Ride Life.

Let me know if you have questions.

*If you have pain please consult with a medical doctor or physical therapist for further evaluation, Liz Koch and companies are without liability if you injure yourself while performing these exercises*

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