Stretching Your Shoulders, Back and Neck

Stretching Your Shoulders, Back and Neck

After the warm-up as well as at the end of the session, it is recommended to take some time to stretch your muscles. Here are some stretching exercises to take care of your shoulder, back and neck muscles.

Brisk Walking Stretch

If you practice brisk walking while paying attention to your arm movements, you put a lot of strain on the muscles of your back, neck and shoulders. In an article dedicated to the correct posture to adopt, we also talked to you about possible pain in these muscles that you no longer use or use very little before starting or resuming brisk walking.These stretching exercises will do you a lot of good to eliminate tension. They should be done during or after your brisk walking session, breathing deeply. They can even be done on a daily basis, to eliminate tension due to stress!

Shoulder stretch

To perform this stretching exercise: cross your right arm in front of you, at shoulder height. Grab your elbow with your left hand. Pulling to the left, across your chest, breathe deeply.Hold the stretch for 15 seconds. Repeat 2 times for each shoulder.Be careful not to pull too hard, and to perform the movement smoothly.

Back stretch

Having a flexible back is just as important for performing each brisk walking movement without difficulty, but also for your daily health.Exercise 1:With your feet crossed, raise your arms above your head while crossing your fingers. With your palms facing the sky, lean your chest to the right for 30 seconds and breathe deeply.Gently return your torso and hands to the center, in line with your legs, and stretch the other side for 30 seconds.Exercise 2:The following exercise is made up of 3 phases, punctuated by your breathing, and requires you to be able to lean against a tree or a bench.First, with your feet together, raise your arms as high as possible as you inhale. You will feel your spine stretch as you straighten your arms. 

Neck stretch

Feet shoulder width apart, back straight: pass your left arm behind your back and grab this arm at wrist level with your right hand. Slowly pull to the right to stretch, and hold for 15 seconds while continuing to breathe from your stomach.