stretching

Christine Bosses Her Tense Muscles Around

Christine Hennebury

Yes, it’s true. Given the chance, I will literally boss ANYTHING around.

To be clear though, I have been trying to boss my neck/shoulder/upper body muscles around for a while (Pain in the Neck, Pah Humbug) but I was less than completely successful. I found some ease but that knot in my neck/shoulder was just hanging around and causing trouble.

(If this is where you want to jump in and say that I might have had more success if I had invited them to relax instead of trying to order them around, please know that I ALSO did relaxation exercises and meditation and lay around on pillows, foam shapes and massage balls of various sizes. This has been a multi-faceted process.)

This weekend, though, I decided to put a lot of effort into bossing those muscles around. I really wanted them to remember that they LIKE moving with ease and that they would feel better if they went along with my plan instead of staying all tense and knotted.

I started with this video from Yoga with Adriene. I’ve found it helpful before and I thought it might help again.

It did.

A video from Yoga with Adriene entitled ‘Neck, Shoulders, & Upper Back’ The still image shows Adriene in exercise clothes sitting crossed legged on a yoga mat with one arm extended to the side and the other one resting on the side of her head as she stretches her neck. Her dog, Benji, is sleeping over to to the side.

When I finished, I felt better but I had time to do a bit more so I tried some Neck CARS (Controlled Articular Rotations).

A video from Tangelo entitled ‘Controlled Articular Rotations Neck’ that shows the instructor rotating leaning his head backwards as he completes a neck rotation.

This video helped A LOT and I could feel things loosening up as I repeated the rotations.

I then meant to try some shoulder CARs but happened upon this video for scapular rotations instead and I gave it a whirl. I mean, I gave it a controlled, careful attempt.

A video from Peter Attia, M.D. called ‘How and why to practice scapula controlled articular rotations. The still image shows black and white photos of the two instructors, one in each bottom corner, and text reading Scapula Training Exercise in the centre.

I only did the first type of scapula CARs from this video but they were extremely helpful. I could feel all kinds of places loosening up as I went through the movements.

So, I am so glad I decided to boss those muscles around on Saturday and follow that up with more bossing around on Sunday and Monday.

My upper body feels more relaxed than it has in a very long time, even before the knot appeared in my neck/shoulder, and I can tell that there is still a lot of muscle relaxing to do in that area.

So obviously, I will keep bossing my muscles into being good to themselves and, of course, into being good to me.

And, in return, the more they relax, the more I will be able to do the kind of exercises they like – more TKD practice, more time on the rowing machine, more yoga.

I think it’s a win-win situation.

Published by Christine Hennebury

I'm a writer/storyteller/director/creativity & lifestory coach with a black belt in ITF Taekwon-do. I read voraciously and I write like my fingers are on fire. I'm the founder and Chair of the Association for the Arts in Mount Pearl and I'm a former president of the St. John's Storytelling Festival. I bake a mean chocolate chip cookie.