Ouch! Ultra Relaxing Massage Therapy for Neck Pain Relief, Including Self Stretches with Tessa!

[Music] guys thank you for joining me today we are going to be doing massage for the neck as well as some stretches that you can do yourself either after the massage or if you can't get a massage so let's go ahead and get started so I'm going to just nice and slow when I'm doing a massage um when I'm about to start I like to introduce my touch nice and slow and I'm basically focusing on moving my thumbs away from the spine so I'm stretching out this fascial tissue along the spine and I love doing this without oil because you have really nice friction can really pull along the soft tissue it can feel kind of funny if you've never had dry work done or you haven't had much of it but it's really effective so I'm just running my thumbs away from the spinal column and I'm not really getting into the muscles just yet it's just that connective tissue can get a little bit more difficult as you get up into the neck sometimes this connective tissue can get kind of sticky along the spine so this is really just super healthy way to start a massage i'm going to work my way back down and really um just being mindful of my own body mechanics and trying to really work as one unit so just working my way down and at this point that fascia should definitely be responding a little bit more and there's another really nice way to do this so I'm actually just going to stack my hands so the sides of um my two fingers are going to It's the same thing it's a little more aggressive so I don't ever start with this um but with this dry work you can really get into that connective tissue in a really nice way so just running your hands along the spinal [Music] column and focusing more on this movement away then towards me and that's about it so I'm going to start working my way into the actual muscles a little bit so I'm going to start doing some just simple compressions with my thumb along the shoulder blade and up into the trap elevator so I'm not really going for max pressure here just warming everything up not being too tentative either and I'm also paying attention to what side feels like it needs the most work and get into this rotator cuff a little bit just getting a better idea of what I need to work on and I'm going to go ahead and do some compressions along the sides of the neck and this is more for just my own awareness kind of seeing how things are feeling warming everything up a little bit just doing some light compressions along that occipital ridge and being careful that I'm not pressing down too much so that I'm not making Juny feel uncomfortable by pressing her face into the cradle you can even work your way [Music] down into that upper to that elevator and upper trap a little bit with your thumbs and I'm actually going to go ahead and do a little more dry work so I'm just going to squeeze that muscle belly and just making sure that I'm not pinching Jun's skin really staying on that muscle different [Music] muscles and not spending too long here using my thumb and the rest of my fingers and I think I'm finally ready for some oil and effage is just a really nice way to get the oil on the skin so just graceful gliding movements can even the arms a little bit makes feels a little more expansive and this is really nice if your client's feeling more uh stress than usual can feel really nice and I'm finally starting to work my way into the shoulders a little bit and these muscles that can pull on the [Music] neck so right now I'm going to actually use the unders sides of my hand to work into these muscles a little bit and this chair is definitely in my way and I've been talking about in some of these more recent videos just trying to really work as one unit so really moving my own body in a way that feels natural instead of being too static [Music] i'm going to do a little bit of Petra in the neck continue to kind of warm everything up so Petra is more about scooping and squeezing than gliding and it's a great way to massage the levator and the shoulder um as well as the neck but you really need to get like the right angle so if the face cradle is too high it can be hard to get into the neck you can even get into the rotator cuff a little bit you can move all the way into the arm if you want a little bit feel nice i'm going to work my way opposite side and this is another thing um another movement where I'm really trying to work as one unit here so swaying my body as I [Music] work and just uh scooping and squeezing and you might find that one side feels [Music] tighter and I'm finally at the point where I'm ready to move a little bit deeper into this neck so I'm working my way into these scaling muscles and up towards the occipital ridge and I'm going to use soft fist to start working my way into the neck so everybody is different so sometimes you have a little more space in the neck to work with if you're working on a smaller person you might need to adjust your movements so I'm just working my way up towards the occipital ridge and I'm working my way towards the ant inter anterior portion of the neck towards the front of the neck but just really um gauging how Jun is responding and adjusting my pressure accordingly [Music] so for someone that has a high sensitivity level this is a nice way to use a broader surface area and also um you know do somewhat deep tissue deeper work and focusing a little more on elevator muscle And finally I'm going to do some more detailed work with my thumb so starting on the posterior side of the neck and then working my way towards the front so I'm pretty selective with where I use my thumb and how much I use my thumb um it's a really nice way to work and I know I'm kind of breaking a rule here you really shouldn't bend your thumb too much you want it to be straight as much as possible really listening to my body here and just working my way towards the front side of the neck [Music] and just working my way up towards that occipital area just using a nice consistent pressure as I work my way up and it's usually best to just keep contact with your client or your friend as you make these [Music] transitions so just nice consistent pressure as I work my way up and something you can do if you're feeling a lot of uh contraction is you can do some trigger point in the neck which can be really nice so feeling that a little bit in these scalings so as I kind of work my way up I'm going to start to pause a little bit i'm just going to pause on that area feels a little more fibrous and just hold it and continue my way up and do that a few times and I'm always careful with the neck um to overwork an area so just kind of listening to what feels right a little bit more here and I really like to just do both sides of the neck at the same time after I do both sides one at a time and I'm definitely um you know in general you don't want to straighten your fingers when you work so just you know listen to your own body and just one more pass through these traps and levators and I might even try to get in there with my thumbs a little bit and I think we are ready for some neck stretches so we're going to kind of resituate All right guys so we are all set for some stretches so um Juny and I are going to come to the edge of our seat so just make sure that you're on the very edge but your glutes are nice and supported and go ahead and separate your feet so you feel nice and solid and go ahead and um I'd like you to just lengthen through your spine and go ahead and just drop your arms so just let your arms feel pretty weightless and I want you to lift through your sternum through your chest and start to just allow your shoulders to relax a little bit more and I want you to lengthen through your neck and go ahead and look down see if you have that forward head posture a little bit so go ahead and just bring your head in line with your spine that looks really good so this is kind of where you should be and really just relax those shoulders so mindfulness goes a long way so just kind of checking in and go ahead and just place your hands on your knees and we're going to do some cat cows in the chair so as you inhale I'd like you to you're going to tuck your chin in and just round your spine and go ahead and just bring your hands away and down your legs round that spine as much as you can and then go ahead and just slide your hands up and you're going to bend your elbows lift your through your sternum and go ahead and just look up towards the sky relax your shoulders and we're going to do this about four times so go ahead and one more time go ahead and inhale you're going to round spread across your shoulders and slide those hands back up come on up and lift lift through your sternum and I'm just going to watch one so go ahead and No you look okay so So staying planted through your feet that looks great and round your spine so it's more like you're like really hunching over as much as you can so we're trying to get into our scapula and really spread across our upper back does that make sense and then on your way up you're really lengthening through the spine rolling those shoulders back that looks great and go ahead and do a couple more i'm just going to watch tuck your chin in that looks good and your way back up go ahead and just lift through your sternum and go ahead and start to look up good job and go ahead and just hold it so keep the spine long and I want you to just keep the spine nice and steady and just bring your chin in towards your chest roll those shoulders back and feeling solid through your sitbones so keeping it all in the neck I want you to just start to do some gentle neck rolls and the left shoulder nice and slow moving in the opposite direction and just make sure that your spine is long just be careful of leaning forward keeping the spine long go ahead and roll your head to the right nice and slow and not moving the head back just rolling from side to side in the front and let's do this a few times on each side relaxing the shoulders as we move the head and stretch the neck this is really great for the scaling muscles that I worked on earlier and let's go and come back to center and just keeping the spine long go ahead and just relax the arms to your side and I'd like you to just uh bring the hands parallel to the floor so go ahead and just bring your hands to your side and relax those shoulders and really lengthen through your fingertips and I'd like you to just bring your arms up a little bit so really reach through your fingertips as you lengthen through the spine and lift through the crown of your head so really feeling length in your neck and feeling the shoulders move in the opposite direction and same thing we're gonna go ahead and just drop the chin towards the chest go ahead and um bring the head towards the right shoulder but hold it and I want you to just lift the left arm slightly maybe a few inches to isolate that stretch and the left side of your neck and you're going to feel this in your trapezius a little bit which is where we want it and go ahead and lower that left arm and opposite side go ahead and bring the head to the left shoulder and lifting the right arm just a couple inches really reach through your fingertips as you turn the head towards the left and release and go ahead and just let your arms feel really heavy and hang and just lengthen through your spine and really um see if you're holding in your shoulders i'd like you to just let your arms feel really heavy and effortless lengthen through your spine i'd like you to just let your arms feel really heavy and effortless and just lift through your sternum lift through the crown of your head and just enjoy that space in your neck and go ahead and just bring your hands on your thighs and we're gonna go ahead and keeping the spine long go ahead and just look up and roll the shoulders back slightly go ahead and look up as much as you can stretching the front part of the neck and go ahead and bring your shin down stretching the back side posterior and anterior sides of the neck one more time just relax those shoulders bring as far back as you can hard to talk and back towards the front stretching the traps a little bit more in a different way and that is it thank you for joining us today guys if you like today's video you can also find more of my massage content on our Patreon site um I do want to thank all of the patrons current patrons out there who are supporting us um your support means a lot to us if you'd like to catch a sneak peek of some exclusive content that only our patrons have access to go ahead and stick around and check it out [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]