Atlas Injury to Health Chiropractic
← All Videos

Trap Stretch for Neck Tension Relief | Chiropractor in Winter Garden, FL

Learn a simple trapezius stretch from a Winter Garden chiropractor to relieve neck tension and tightness at home in just 15 seconds per side.

Key Takeaways

  • Trapezius tension is one of the most common neck complaints — and it responds well to targeted stretching.
  • Tucking the arm behind your back on the affected side helps isolate the trap muscle for a more effective stretch.
  • Rotating and dropping your head toward the opposite side directs the stretch precisely into the back of the neck.
  • Placing a gentle hand on the back of your head allows you to safely accentuate the stretch when needed.
  • Holding each side for 15 seconds is the recommended duration for meaningful muscle relief.

Overview

Trap Stretch for Neck Tension Relief

One of the most common complaints at Atlas Injury to Health is tightness and tension in the back of the neck — specifically in the trapezius (trap) muscles. This short, practical video walks you through a simple at-home stretch you can do anytime to target that area and find relief.

How to Perform the Stretch

  1. Identify the affected side — the demonstration uses the right side as an example.
  2. Tuck the arm on that side gently behind your back, into the small of your back.
  3. Turn your head in the opposite direction (left, in this example) and look down toward the floor until you feel a stretch along the back of the trap.
  4. To deepen the stretch, lightly place your opposite hand on the back of your head and gently pull downward toward the left side.
  5. Hold for 15 seconds on each side.

This stretch is straightforward, requires no equipment, and can be performed anywhere — making it an excellent tool for managing day-to-day neck tension between clinical visits.

Full Transcript

Common complaints that we get from a lot of patients here are there's a lot of tension in the back of their neck, primarily in the traps. So we're going to learn how to stretch that. Basically what we want to do, the side that's being affected, we'll use the right side for this example. We're going to take that arm and lightly tuck it behind us in the small of our back. Our head is going to look opposite direction, so to the left in this example. And we're going to look down towards the floor until we start to feel a stretch in the back of our trap. If we need to accentuate the stretch a little bit more, we can just gently grab the back of our head and lightly pull down towards that left side. Hold that stretch for about 15 seconds on each side. Thank you.