What are some good exercises for the cervical spine?

The cervical spine is very important to the human body, but modern urban people will have more or less problems with their cervical spine due to long-term sitting and lack of exercise. This is something we need to pay attention to. When we have free time on weekends, we should do more exercises that are good for the cervical spine. Let’s now look at some good exercises for the cervical spine.

Exercises for the cervical spine should be performed with caution, and aimless rapid rotation or swinging should be avoided, especially in the acute stage of cervical spondylosis, vertebral artery cervical spondylosis, or spinal cord cervical spondylosis. The method we recommend is simple and easy to implement, but to achieve the goal of disease prevention and treatment, you must persevere.

1. With the head in neutral position, bend forward to the limit, and return to the neutral position; extend backward to the limit, and return to the neutral position; rotate left to the limit, and return to the neutral position; rotate right to the limit, and return to the neutral position; flex the left side to the limit, and return to the neutral position; flex the right side to the limit, and return to the neutral position. The movements should be slow and with slight force. During exercise, some patients may feel a popping sound in their neck. If it is accompanied by pain, they should reduce the number of exercises or stop exercising; if there is no pain, they can continue exercising.

2. With your head in a neutral position, hold your hands behind your neck with your fingers interlaced, and slowly flex and extend your head. At the same time, use your hands to resist the movement of your head to exercise the muscles on the back of your cervical spine.

Then you can basically just follow the stretching method above. Instead of exercising the cervical spine, it is better to relax the ligaments and small muscles that fix the cervical spine.

The following points must be noted!:

1. When doing stretching exercises, you must go slowly, slower, as slow as possible. Otherwise, it will not only fail to exercise, but may cause injury.

2. Do more front-to-back movements, such as "head in neutral position, flex forward to the limit, return to neutral position; extend backward to the limit, return to neutral position", and do less rotational movements, such as "rotate left to the limit, return to neutral position; rotate right to the limit, return to neutral position;", and be sure to do it slowly!

As for the principle, it is difficult to explain it in a few words. Simply put, you can think that the ligaments and muscles of the cervical spine grow vertically. Forward and backward movements can stretch them to the greatest extent, while rotational movements require complex coordination of many small muscles and ligaments.

The above introduces some exercises that are good for the cervical spine. We should exercise more when we have free time. This can effectively protect our cervical spine and avoid cervical spine diseases. I hope this can help everyone.