Do you experience radiating arm pain along with your neck pain?  How about numbness or tingling traveling down your arm?  These are symptoms of irritated or sensitive nerves, possibly coming from a problem in your neck.  This article shows you several simple nerve gliding exercises that can help arm pain coming from your neck.

Nerve Gliding Proven to Help Neck and Arm Pain

A 2022 study published in the journal PLoS One looked at 88 people with neck and arm pain.  All participants received 12 sessions of physical therapy. This included a series of neck-strengthening exercises.  However, half of the participants also performed a nerve gliding exercise guided by their physical therapist.

After 4 weeks, both groups showed significant improvement in pain, disability, and neck range of motion.  However, the group that also performed the nerve gliding exercises, improved by 25% more than those who only did the neck strengthening exercises.

3 Helpful Nerve Gliding Exercises

Your body’s nervous system is a huge continuous network of nerves throughout your body.  Electrical signals travel up and down this network like a high-speed rail line.  However, sometimes these pathways become damaged and the signals disrupted.  Injuries to surrounding structures like joints and muscles often disrupt the function of nearby nerves.

For your nervous system to properly work, your nerves must feely move with all the surrounding tissues close to it.  Injuries, especially old or chronic ones, interfere with how your nerves move.  Nerves that don’t move well become tight, and painful, or they may cause numbness and tingling.

The following 3 nerve gliding exercises restore normal movement and function of the nerves in your arm. Many other nerve gliding exercises are effective but these 3 are a good place to start.

Median Nerve Glide

This is a very gentle technique that is good to start with.  Begin with your arm hanging down at your side with your elbows straight and your palm facing forward. Next, slowly bend your wrist forward and back.

Your other hand checks to make sure that your shoulder stays down and is drawn back the entire time.

Complete 2 sets of 15 repetitions.  Mild pain is acceptable during the exercise.  However, your pain should settle back down soon after completing the exercise.  If not, discuss alternative exercises with your physical therapist.

Nerve Sliding Technique

This is a progression of the previous technique.  Start with your arm up and out to the side with a straight elbow. Position your palm facing upwards. Next, bend your wrist upwards as you side bend your head away from your arm. Then, bend your wrist downward as you side-bend your head towards your arm.

Your other hand checks to make sure that your shoulder stays down and is drawn back the entire time.

Perform the movement slowly.  Complete 2 to 3 sets of 15 repetitions.  Mild pain is acceptable during the exercise.  However, your pain should settle back down soon after completing the exercise.  If not, we recommend you stick with the first median nerve glide exercise.

Nerve Tensioning Technique

Tensioning techniques are for stubborn symptoms that do not respond to the previous 2 gentler techniques.  However, use caution with these exercises.  Overly aggressive stretching of the nerve will irritate your pain.

Start with your hand touching the top of your shoulder with your palm facing down.  Your head starts in a neutral position.  Then gently straighten your elbow and extend your wrist (palm facing up towards the ceiling).  At the same time slowly bring your opposite ear towards your opposite shoulder (bending your neck away from the arm).

After a brief pause, return to the starting position and repeat. Only bend the neck and wrist to where you can, stopping the motion as you feel a stretch or an increase in symptoms.

Complete 2 to 3 sets of 15 repetitions.  Mild pain is acceptable during the exercise.  However, your pain should settle back down soon after completing the exercise.  If not, we recommend you stick with the first 2 techniques described above.

Need More Help? Work with Your Physical Therapist

Try these 3 nerve gliding exercises if you have been experiencing neck pain with radiating pain into your arm.  When starting, go easy with the first 2 techniques.  If you experience no or only partial relief then you can move on to the tensioning exercise.

Nerve gliding exercises work best for chronic symptoms, or pain that has been around for several weeks or months.  If your pain is new and severe, you may need more help to calm things down before trying nerve glides.

Manual therapy performed by your physical therapist will speed up your recovery.  If you need help managing your neck and arm pain, contact us to schedule an initial evaluation with your physical therapist.