Supercharge Your SCM Stretch

In this video I will demonstrate how I stretch my sternocleidomastoid muscles or SCM for short using Anchor and Movement Bias.

I believe the SCM is a priority muscles for neck care and voice care for singers. In my 24 years as a physio, practically every patient I’ve treated who have neck pain, headache, jaw pain or muscle tone dysphonia had undue muscle tension in their SCM.

Why is that?

Your SCM runs from your sternum, clavicle, to the mastoid process in your head. On its own it turns your head to the other side, together they are your ducking muscles. This means that if you spend a lot of time in the ducking position, it is very easy for you to develop undue tension in your SCM.

And because of the attachments and actions of the SCM, it has big influence over the position and freedom of your larynx, that’s why it is a priority muscles both for neck care and voice care. Check out this video where I demonstrate using Anchor and Movement Bias to stretch your larynx.

Now stretching might seem harmless but there are safety considerations. Instead of holding your neck in the extended position, I believe it is safer and more effective to do Repeated Active Movement for certain neck stretches.

This is because when you hold your neck in the extended position, you are also stretching blood vessels and some people can’t tolerate that, plus most people don’t have the strength to support their head in that extended position. I explain all these in details in that larynx stretching video I just mentioned so make sure you check it out.

To use Anchor and Movement Bias to stretch any muscle, we want to Anchor one end of the muscle down then use Movement to move the other end even further away.

The Anchor for SCM is underneath the inside end of your collarbone. I Anchor my skin down with the same side hand.

For the base movement, the direction of movement is to bring the mastoid process high up over the Anchor.

Now your mastoid process is right behind your ear so I find it easiest to simply think about moving my ear high up over my Anchor, kind of like listening to what is coming from up and behind me. “Say what?” My other hand I either hang it by my side or I use it to reinforce my Anchor. I do the base movement three times on each side.

The first Movement Bias is to use a small head rotation to bring the mastoid end of the muscle a teeny weeny bit further away from the Anchor. I move my ear high up over my Anchor then slowly turn my head down slightly and then return to the starting position. I do this three times on both sides.

The next Movement Bias is a pout to the opposite side of the Anchor.

Again I move my ear high up over my Anchor, gently pout to the opposite side of the Anchor then return to the starting position. I do this three times on both sides.

I personally like to do each step on both sides before I move on to the next Bias, do them on both sides before I move on to the next one, because if I do them all on one side first, that side now feels longer and looser, it’s weird and I don’t like it, and doing them on both sides before I move on to the next one helps me keep them feeling more balanced as I go.

And that is how I use Anchor and Movement Bias to stretch my SCM. If you’ve found this useful please let me know with a thumb up. I’m Selina, a physio and singer, I help singers Move Better to Sing Better, if that is your vibe please subscribe. And this is the playlist I have made just for singers so make sure you check it out. ‘Til next time, Be Free In Your Movement.™