Carpal Tunnel Nerve Flossing
We’re going to cover very quickly, how to do a median nerve neuromechanic drill.
We were talking about carpal tunnel syndrome, and looking at some current research that shows
that nerve flossing or nerve gliding, exercises can be very effective in helping with that particular issue.
So, here’s how you’re going to do it. Stand in a comfortable neutral stance. So feet facing forward.
I want you to get nice and tall and very importantly, I want you to lengthen from the base of your neck, normally around C5, toward the bottom of the cervical spine, we want to make sure that we’re nice and tall.
The next thing that we’re going to do with the arm down by the side, we’re going to spread the fingers and extend the wrist.
Now as you start to do this, you’re going to feel some tingling, begin in your thumb, your index finger and middle finger.
That tells you that you’re hitting the median nerve. So from this position, we want to externally rotate from the shoulder, abduct a little bit. So, take the arm out to the side, depress the scapula, tilt the head away. Now once you’re here, we want to elevate the scapula and depress the scapula. This is going to be the flossing exercise, number one.
Next, you’re going to hold some tension here, you’re going to bend the elbow, taking the tension off, straighten the elbow putting the tension back on.
And then, finally, we’re going to do this at the wrist by flexing the wrist and extending the wrist. Flex and extend.
As you do these, you want to do about three mobilizations in each position, shoulder, elbow and wrist.
Keep the tension very low. I tell people when they first begin doing any kind of nerve work to think, about a 3 out of 10 level. Meaning we don’t want this to be super painful and for your hand to go numb. You can actually hurt yourself.
So go slowly and cautiously keep it at a 3 out of 10, three to five repetitions of the shoulder blade elevation and depressions, elbow flexion and extension, wrist flexion and extension,
Do that three to four times a day. See how it does for you.
