3 Best Stretches for Cyclists | Sports Chiropractor in Sun Prairie, WI
Hi, I’m Dr. Steph Pinnow from Noble Choice Chiropractic. And one of the athletes that we typically see in our office are either triathletes or avid cyclists. For that reason, we wanted to do a quick video for helping those people. And this is obviously good for anybody.
Those people that are having a lot of upper back tension and neck tightness, a lot of times that reason is because, you know, this is an indoor bike for cycling. But when you are cycling for prolonged periods of time, outside most of the time, you’ll get into what’s called the arrow position, where you are leaning forward, elbows on the handlebars, very aerodynamic. But when you’re looking up like this, it might be, you know, hours at a time that you’re in this position, and that creates a lot of stress on your spine. So what we want to do is give you a couple stretches and exercises that you can do to help you with upper back and neck tension. If you’re a cyclist, or even if you’re just having this from working at a desk all day.
The Chin Retraction Exercise for Your Neck Health
The first exercise that we have for you is something that should be pretty familiar if you’re either already a practice member in our office, or if you’ve been watching any of our other videos that have to do with neck and neck issues, injuries, that kind of thing. The first exercise is called chin retraction. So what we’re doing is we’re working on strengthening some of the weaker muscles in the front and the back of your neck. The easiest way to do this is to turn to your side, well, I’ll turn to my side so you can see me, but you’re going to look straight ahead. And then you’ll bring your chin and you’re gonna tuck your chin backwards into this kind of like, double chin awkward position, if you have a double chin, you know you’re doing it right, so you’re gonna hold that for a second or two, and then release, and then back and then release. So this is gonna feel kind of awkward here and back here. The point of this is higher repetitions. So you want to do 10 to 15 of those chin tucks, making sure that when you’re doing this, you’re not looking down and talking or looking up too high and tucking. I also don’t want you to do the chicken thing where you’re doing a really good job of talking but then you poke out. We want just stretching retraction retraction back to neutral. Alright, so That’s exercise number one.
The “Open Book” Exercise for Your Mid Back
The second exercise is one of my favorite exercises, this is for your mid back and it’s called open book. So what you’re going to do is you will be laying on your side, knees are going to be tucked together, hands are going to be touching here, heads going to be on the floor, and you’re going to bring this top arm up and over, follow it with your eyes and your head and try to touch the ground back here, and then come back to center. So that would be one repetition, you’re gonna do 10 of these on one side, and then flip over and do 10. On the other side, I will tell you, if you are someone that is very flexible, and it’s easy for you to touch that floor over there, what you’ll do is actually take your top knee and you’re going to drop that down to the ground. And then go ahead and try it. So it’s a little bit more difficult for me to reach all the way back there. If my knee is here, the goal is to keep knees touching the ground, and not moving the whole body like this. So 10 on one side, flip over 10 on the other side, three sets a day really going to help with that.
The Scapular Push-Up
The last exercise that I have for you for that mid back is called a scapular push up. This one looks easier than it is in my opinion. So what you’re doing, you’ll be in this hands and knees kind of tabletop position. And you’re going to keep your elbows straight. Looking with your head in a neutral position, what you’ll do is you actually drop your shoulders down while keeping your elbows straight like this, and kind of push or pull your shoulder blades together, and then come back up. So it really is a big motion into your shoulder blades. You might feel some pops, you might hear some crunching that’s pretty normal. However, make sure you’re not doing like the cat cow when you’re doing this, elbows should be straight. Drop that down. So again, I usually do about 10, 10 Up and 10 down.
Three sets a day to help with that mid back. Alright, I hope those exercises have helped you are a little helper Duke is here to assist with us. Did you want to come show some exercises?
All right. That’s all we got for you. If you have questions, feel free to let us know. Thanks!
