Exercise for Whiplash by Dan Watt, Level ACE Fitness Instructor

Exercise for Whiplash by Dan Watt, Level ACE Fitness Instructor

Author of “Learning The Garden Of The Body” on Amazon.com

If you missed Taylor’s description of Whiplash and Fibromyalgia from two weeks ago I suggest you go back to that blog and read it.

Whiplash causes the traps to tense up.  Stand in front of a mirror with a light weight like soup cans and observe your neck and traps as you curl the weight (arm curl).  The traps will bunch up and your head will lean forward.  This could be because of pain or because the signal from your brain to contract goes to your neck and trap muscles first.  Two ways to avoid this are breathing and concentrating on the biceps muscles.

The objective is to send the signal to the working muscle directly and not to your traps.  The whiplash has caused you to stay in protection mode by tensing the traps, neck and possibly between the shoulder blades.

Let’s use arm curls (biceps curls).  Stand in front of a mirror in an at-attention stance while holding very light weights or no weights.  Contract your biceps.  Keep focusing on your biceps until you reach full range of motion.  If you still find your traps and between your shoulder blades contracting and you feel pain try inhaling as you curl.  Inhaling stabilizes the spine.

Not a lot of humour in whiplash but we did this at Victoria Park in Kitchener-Waterloo and the wind was so loud we couldn’t use the video clips we did.

Poor Posture for Arm Curls (Biceps Curls)

Poor Posture for Arm Curls–contraction complete

The above shows the traps contracting as the main muscles and the body hunched.

The above shows proper posture and the biceps as the main muscles contracting.

• Pictures by Andraya Watt at Victoria Park, Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario.  Pictures are the property of TWHEALTHHUMOR

Try another exercise.  Put your arms in front of you (if it doesn’t cause too much pain) and contract your lats or wings (latissimus dorsi).  Inhale as you contract your back muscles.  This should cause your arms to bend so your elbows move to the sides of your body.  You want to contract the desired muscle throughout the full range of motion not just at the beginning.

The two keys points here are:  send the signal to contract to the muscles you want to exercise and keep focusing on the contraction through a full range of motion.  Try inhaling on exertion (contraction) to stabilise your body.

In two weeks I’ll discuss exercise and Fibromyalgia