Cervical Traction Warm Up Exercise

Cervical Traction Warm Up Exercise

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The Cervical Traction is a simple tool designed to reduce forward head posture and improve the cervical curve.

HOW TO USE THE CERVICAL TRACTION:

1.) The straight piece should be positioned at the height of your chin.

2.) The curved piece is placed behind the neck. The hands should grip the ends of the straight piece (fingers curled towards the wall or away, which ever you prefer). Stand close in against the wall.

3.) While looking up towards the ceiling, bend the knees slightly for two seconds as you breathe out. The pressure should be felt on the fingers & behind the neck, and the muscles in the front of your neck should not be strained.

4.) Relax for two seconds, breathing in as you come up, then repeat!

Gentle, quick pulls are more effective than long, strong pulls. This is because the muscles will tense up more with a long, forceful pull. Once the muscles are tense, it is more difficult to move the bones of the neck back into place. Gentle, repetitive motions will bypass the muscles, relax the ligaments, and restore the curve!

 

 

Why does the curve in your neck disappear?

There may be many different reasons.

Sometimes it is a motor vehicle crash, or an incident of trauma. More often, however, it may develop slowly, over time, as we live day-to-day. Studying in school, working at a computer, or focusing on a project on a workbench often requires that we hold our head downwards and forwards for long periods of time.

Eventually, this causes the spine to slip, bit by bit, until the muscles become tight and strong. The body then begins to use these stronger muscles more than the weaker ones, reinforcing the change in posture.

With the loss of the curve in your neck, the nerves that travel through the spinal cord to every single cell in our body begin to suffer. In a straight neck, with no curve at all, the spinal cord is stretched by 10%. If the neck buckles completely, this can increase to as high as 28%! If somebody pulled on your finger until it was 28% longer, you’d probably complain about it a little.

The Cervical Traction is a gentle, simple, and practical way to keep your spine -and the nerves that run through it on their way to the rest of your body  at the optimum level of function!