Tag: mobility drill

How to Fix a Stiff Neck in Seconds (THIS WORKS!)

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If you ever tried to lift with a stiff neck you quickly find out how difficult it really is. Not only will your lifts suffer but you may wind up hurting yourself even more by attempting to do this. That said, imagine if you had a quick weapon in your arsenal that allowed you to quickly make the pain go away and restore the range of motion that you were lacking because of the stiffness. I’m going to show you exactly that in this video.

If you have a tough time rotating or turning your head to the left or right, you likely have one of two scenarios that are contributing to this problem. The first is a tissue restriction (most often muscle) that is preventing your vertebrae from moving as they would like. The second is a stuck joint that is preventing the vertebrae from moving as they would like. As you can see, in either case, the cervical vertebrae are not moving as they should and this is causing you pain and discomfort while limiting your ability to lift.

Time to fix that. We start by realizing that rotation of the head in one direction or the other has an opposite reaction when looking at the spine from the standpoint of the spinous processes that sit behind each vertebrae body. In other words, when you turn your head to the left, your spinous process on your vertebra are turning to the right. This is important to know since this forms the basis of your treatment.

With a towel, you place it around your neck and grasp each end with a hand. The towel should be at the level of the discomfort that you feel in your neck when you currently turn your head. This can be felt with either the towel on the back of your neck with by palpating the neck for soreness as you move down one vertebrae at a time. With the towel in the right location you begin by pulling harder on the hand that is opposite the direction you want to turn your head.

For example, if you wanted to turn your head to the left you would pull forward and with more force on the right hand. The left hand would be there to simply stabilize the towel. As you pull forward you then want to rotate your head to the left. You should find that both your range of motion will have been greatly improved and your pain should have subsided.

Do this for about 10 reps and then rest. You can do it again a few more times if needed later in the day to reestablish the proper mechanics and allow your spasmed muscles to subside. Once your neck is back and moving free of discomfort you can resume your hard training and start making those gains again.

Speaking of gains, if you are looking for a complete workout program that puts the science back in strength so you can make your best gains ever be sure to visit http://athleanx.com and get the ATHLEAN-X Training System. Start taking your entire training approach seriously and start seeing the best results you ever thought possible in just the next 90 days.

For more videos on how to fix a popping shoulder and how to fix anterior pelvic tilt, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

IT Band Syndrome and Knee Pain (HOW TO FIX IT!)

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Many lifters, runners and bikers will get pain on the outside of their knee or thigh and think that they have IT Band Syndrome because they’ve been told that they do. Unfortunately, the IT Band is just caught in the middle of some pretty significant problems in one of likely four other muscles. In this video, I show you how four muscles in the hip actually contribute to the pain and tension felt in the Iliotibial band and what you need to do to fix them. Here’s a hint, you do not want to foam roll out the IT Band unless you want more pain and discomfort.

The IT Band is a thick fibrous tendon that runs along the lateral aspect of the thigh and connects from the hip to the tibia on the outside of your knee. This tendon has the ability to withstand changes in tension to it by having up to 1000 pounds of resistive capacity. If you think that you are going to be able to foam roll out the tightness that may be present in this structure you are sadly mistaken.

That said, you can definitely influence the tension present in this band by addressing the muscles that insert into the IT Band. The gluteus maximus, lateral hamstrings and quads and tensor fascia lata are all muscles that feed into the iliotibial band. When any of these muscles are tight they pull on the band and cause it to be not just tight but also out of balance with the rest of the tension that is contributing or feeding into it. This can cause a pulling on the femur and make it hard to properly execute a squat or ride a bike without feeling pain in the outside of your thigh or knee.

Instead of foam rolling the IT Band, you want to compress and floss the offending muscles feeding the tension. Here I show you two of these mobility drills that you can do to decrease the tension in a hypertonic muscle such as the TFL or the lateral quads. You want to use a resilient structure like a lacrosse ball or the fat gripz that I’m using here, since they have a much lower profile than the foam roller. This allows you to keep your leg in contact with the ground and move it into hip flexion as if you were while doing a squat.

If you do not feel any discomfort at all in these movements when you place the muscle in contact with the grips, then you likely do not need any work on this muscle. This is one of the biggest places people waste time in the gym these days. They see every mobility drill in the books and want to add it to their routines, not realizing that the wrong mobility drills when performed can actually do more to put you out of balance than bring you into it!

Mobility work is only effective if you are mobilizing structures that need it in the first place. Same goes for training and workout programs. Doing what you think looks cool or because someone else told you it was, is not the prescription for an effective workout plan. Doing what needs to be done and only what needs to be done while ignoring the rest of the broscience out there is a great way to get results and get them faster. You can do that by getting the ATHLEAN-X Training system available at http://athleanx.com

For more hip mobility videos and ways to help stretch a tight IT Band, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24