Dr. Li  0:02 

Hello, this is Dr. Li from Mobility Plus. I'm going to show you one of our favorite in-office exercise called the seated plank. This is for those who have neck pain or neck tightness, or low back pain and low back tightness, this is for you. For those who have watched our other videos on the neck and low back self-tests, you are going to mark down your findings and try to see how this exercise helps you with those findings. Now, for those who haven't watched it yet, feel free to pause the video right now and go back to our neck and low back range of motions self-test videos to see how you do with that. Mark down your we're finding to see which ones those type or not, then go back to this video to do the self-correction to see how that helps.

Now, let's go back to the exercise. So, very simple, you're going to sit nice and tall. You're going to put the meaty part of your hands right on your thighs. Extend your elbows, push as hard, harder, so hard to the point that you're going to feel like your core is engaging. Good. Feeling that? Now, push even harder. Good. Even harder. As you can see, my voice is changing too as I push it that hard. Once you find that shakiness, stay there. Now, while you stay there, try to see if we can keep breathing using your lower rib cage. Now, what do I mean by that? You want to put your hands here. As you breathe in, you want to feel your rib cage going east and west. As you breathe out, the rib cage is going back to the centerline.

One more time. Breathing in; rib cage going east and west, and breathing out; rib cage goes back to the centerline. And I want to put this all together, so try to see if you can maintain that kind of breathing pattern while you push them hard. We’re going to hold it for 10 breaths. Good. I know you don't want to go through the whole 10 breaths of trying to do that on your own. So, say this is after 10 breaths, then you want to recheck your neck range of motions again along with the low back. Now, for those who have previously do the self-test for the neck, you will notice your neck tightness or tension will be a lot less.

And for those who have low back tightness, especially those who feel pain touching your toes or bending back, you're going to find your back loosened up quite a bit. We always tell our patients, when you keep stretching and tightness keep coming back, try this. This is helping you to really engage all the muscles. All the little stabilizing muscle, they're working so hard to try to stabilize you because your cores are not working. And by activating your cores, those little stabilizers can actually finally relax. And that's why you feel, quote-unquote “more relaxed,” and more loose after this exercise. So, give this a try, let us know how it goes for you. If you have any questions, never hesitate to email us or call us. This is Dr. Li, again, from Mobility Plus here to help you to move better and feel better. See you next time.

[End Of Audio]