Hey everyone. My name is Dr.Roger Saias, your chiropractor for whiplash here at PA Pain & Rehab.
In this video, I’m gonna show you two exercises that are great especially if you’ve been injured in a car accident and suffered a whiplash injury. So the first exercise is this, you’re going to put your hands up like this and you’re gonna squeeze your shoulder blades together.
Chiropractic Whiplash Care in Philadelphia, PA
So you wanna hold that squeeze, arms up like this, squeeze the shoulder blades together. This is gonna activate the muscles in between your shoulder blades. It’s gonna activate the muscles that surround your scapular region and feed up into the upper trapezius muscle here.
However, if you cannot put your arms up like this and it’s causing you too much pain, don’t do this exercise. No stretch and no exercise should cause you pain especially after an accident.
There’s a difference between that stretch and exercise feels good compared to hey that’s causing more problems than I had before I tried it. So arms up like this,squeeze the shoulder blades together and what you gonna do is you gonna make circles with your hands while you’re squeezing your shoulder blades together.
Again this is gonna activate the muscles in between your shoulder blades that are often really strained especially after that forward and backward movement after a whiplash type of injury.
Exercises for Whiplash with Chiropractic in Philadelphia, PA
So again, squeeze the shoulder blades together, make circles with your hands and then you’re gonna add another component. While you’re squeezing and while you’re making circles, you’re going to go side to side and this will hit other angles of the muscles.
Again,it should feel really good and you gonna be surprised because it doesn’t look like a huge exercise but it really packs a punch and it really gets into those areas that are stiff and especially overstretched as a result of this forward and backward whipping movement after whiplash trauma.
So again, shoulders back hands up circles with the hands, feel that in between your shoulder blades, feel that all along this whole scapular region.
Again it should feel good. So if you’re doing this exercise and it hurts and you don’t understand why it hurts, seek professional advice.
Whiplash Recovery with Chiropractic in Philadelphia, PA
All right so the next one again, that whiplash is going to damage this time, the head goes backwards the head webs forward and a lot of people are left with this forward head posture after a car accident.
They may have already had it before but it’s gonna be accentuated after, especially, you know, most of our days spent on a cell phone or on a computer or doing all these movements that pushes our body forward and that whiplash trauma is gonna make it even worse.
So what you’re gonna do at this one is very similar. You’re going to put your arms up like this and again if it hurts too much to do this, don’t do this exercise. You’re not ready for it.
Hands behind your head like this. You’re gonna run your elbows back. So what we’re trying to do is we’re gonna open up the chest. We’re gonna stretch out the chest. We’re gonna bring the head back over the shoulders and what you gonna do, when your head’s back, you gonna push your head straight back into your hands.
So this is going to activate the muscles in the back of your neck here. You gonna be stretching out the muscles in the front of your chest and you’re just simply gonna push your head back into your hands and while you’re doing that while your head and your hands are met with resistance,
you’re gonna simply look up.
So again you’re pushing your head back into your hands and you’re looking up. So it’s going to take care of some of the muscles in the front as you go backwards and it’s going to strengthen your upper back muscles in here again that have been overstretched and damaged as a result of that whiplash injury.
Again, hands up, elbows back, push your head back into your hands and you’re simply gonna
look up if you can.
Again, none of these exercises should hurt. Another question that we get a lot is how often should I do them? How many repetitions? How long should I hold the exercise and the stretch for?
You know, most of the people that we encounter don’t stretch at all, so starting from scratch, you can start very easily.
You don’t have to, you don’t have to spend a lot of time doing these. You just have to get into
the rhythm, the routine, and perhaps even the habit of doing these on a daily basis.
Chiropractic for Whiplash in Philadelphia, PA
Again, I stated in several videos that the sooner you get your body moving after an accident, especially a whiplash trauma, like you may experience in a car accident, yeah you get the muscles, tendons and ligaments, especially the spine moving as quickly as possible.
So again, that first exercise I showed you, you can do that throughout the day. You know, take a break. You know, you can do it on the hour. You can do it in the morning when you wake up. You can do it in the evening before you go to bed. Just set a routine, get into that habit of doing it every day. The one that I showed you before with the hands and the circles, you can do that as long as you want.
If you can do that for a minute, great. If you can do that for two minutes but again, just want to get into that habit again. If you can only do it for 20 seconds, do it for as long as you can in the beginning. It just activates those muscles and gets them moving.
And as far as the other exercise, when you bring your hands back and you push your head back, you can hold these, hold this exercise for three to five seconds and if you want to increase it, if you want to do it more, okay great, if you can only do it.
Whiplash Injury Exercises in Philadelphia, PA
You know if you can’t do it for that long, and that’s okay too, again it’s about getting into that routine of doing these exercises and then you need to keep adding on. There are so many different types of exercises and stretches that you can do for yourself, especially if you’ve been injured.
So if you’ve liked this video and you’ve been injured in a car accident and you’re still hurting and you don’t have a plan in place to actually get better being on pain relievers and muscle relaxers and ice packs and whatever you’ve been given at this point, give one of our offices a call.
Let’s get you on our schedule for a consultation to see if chiropractic is right for your injuries and if we can help you. If you don’t feel like giving us a call that’s okay, you can send us an email or you can drop us a comment on this video and ask any question you want and we will respond to you.
I hope this message finds you well. I hope you got some good information out of this. I appreciate your time and I’ll see you in the next video.
