Percussive Therapy Massage Gun Neck Exercise

Ok, the tech neck guys would love this! Massage guns are not only useful after an exercise or sports session, they are also handy for sore feet or and/or legs, they are also useful for the neck. So, let’s say you had to wait long for a bus, or sit too long on a transcontinental flight, or stand on a voting queue for a long while, a massage gun would come in very handy for your muscles, to relieve pain and help blood flow. Tech neck is a very common source of back pain, the act of stressing muscles while using phones, tablets, and computers, resulting in neck and shoulder pain, stiffness, and soreness, is a problem that's getting worse. There’s a 50% chance you have tech neck every day, as numerous studies have shown that the average human spends 5-6 hours every day staring at a screen, there’s a 60% chance you’re reading this article with your neck forward.

Pains in the neck region can be sickening, especially when they cause sharp pain and difficulty in motion, a percussion massage device will ease up muscle hardness and alleviate the pain. Percussive therapy is a physiotherapeutic treatment structured to loosen stiffness of the muscle and treat the injury of the muscles by delivering rapid vigorous pulsating strokes which travels deep into the muscles, tendons, ligaments to loosen tight muscles and knots, relieve muscle soreness and pain, and to increase the ability of the body to heal and recover.  Percussion is the ultimate massage experience providing fast comfort by disrupting pain signals and increasing local blood circulation and block neurotransmitters and may help decrease inflammation and increase oxytocin levels; all of which allow muscles to relax, reducing feelings of tiredness and pain

The benefit of daily exercising is not farfetched in a bid to attain a state of body conditioning and fitness and although body exercises or work-outs, usually lead to tiredness, stress, and fatigue, it sure has great health benefits. Exercises have been proven that it can:

• Strengthen your bones and muscles
• It lessens your proneness to chronic health diseases like heart diseases, diabetes.
• It is a great step to take when considering burning fats and shedding off some weights.
• It has been proven to improve the health of the brain and enhance the brain's retentive ability.
• It serves as a moment of liberation from emotional and psychological stress as it tends to make one feel more alive and happier.

However, these benefits also come with somewhat side effects. Body exercises often result in uneasiness, muscle pains, decreased range of motion, low flexibility, and at certain times could lead to the coagulation of extracellular fluids in the muscle tissue which could result in obstruction of blood circulation or lymphatic circulation. This of course would further result in limitations in the ability of the body to perform certain functions.

This is the point at which percussive therapy comes in handy.  One of the major benefits of percussive therapy is its ability to significantly decrease the Delay Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS). That is the persistent pain and muscle soreness that is felt as an aftermath of the body exercises and work-outs. Percussive therapy uses percussive devices like massage guns to treat many muscles and general health illnesses. It has been proven to reduce drastically many health symptoms such as stress and fatigue, muscle inflammation, fluid coagulation, and restrained blood and lymphatic circulations, high blood pressure among others.

How to Keep Your Neck Healthy with Percussive Therapy

            With a massage gun, you can maintain and minimize neck pains, the

• Side to Side Neck rotation: This is the tilting of your neck towards the shoulder. It is recommended that you hold up this posture for 5 to 6 seconds.
• Head lift: Initial position is to lie on the floor with bent knees and feet flat.
• Wall push-ups. This is similar to normal push-ups. Just that here, you are pushing up against a wall. More like leaning anteriorly towards the wall and pushing up backward to your initial position.
• Shoulder squeeze: This exercise is targeted towards the neck but it exacts a direct effect on the scapula.
• Neck tilt: This involves tilting your head down when in a sitting position until your chin makes contact with your chest (Thoracic cavity)

It is important to spice things up with your massage gun, as tech neck compresses and tightens the muscle, tendon, and ligament structures in front of the neck while lengthening the muscles, tendon, and ligament structures behind the neck. The goal is to use light pressure to activate your parasympathetic nervous system.

• First, before touching your skin, turn on the massage gun, for better control and safety, you should not turn on the massage gun before it touches your skin.
• Next, you may start by resting it on your lower/upper back muscles without adding any pressure, then slowly increase the pressure, but the pressure should be minimal, you can set your massage gun to high-speed levels, but do not apply high pressure. Do not push the percussion massage gun hard on the neck and back muscle especially on the upper trap (This is where the levator scapulae muscle comes into the shoulder body).
• Remember applying too much pressure can stimulate the nervous system to be alert, which may delay or cause difficulty in falling asleep.

• Then move the device from the side of your chest toward the armpit and onto the front of your shoulder for about a minute
• Next, you move the device back and forth from the base of the shoulder to the top of the shoulder for about a minute to ease the neck pain.
• Do not run percussion massagers over any nerve bundle as doing this could lead to numbness.
• Avoid letting the massage device rest too long on a particular part of your neck as it can result in extracellular fluids returning into the muscle tissues which could be a problem.

• Make sure that you do NOT glide the massage gun over your throat, nose, or mouth region, and that your breathing is not obstructed.

Also, avoid using the percussion massage gun on painful areas of your neck and body generally. Suffice it to say that the combined effect of therapy and percussion technology is a winner winner chicken dinner for both athletes and neutrals looking to explore and exploit the benefits of a massage gun (a percussion massage device). Again, if well utilized, it can get rid of painful sleep or tech neck, as almost everyone experiences that every once in a while.