I’m 48 years old if that matters. A couple years ago in 2022 I had some x-rays for a shoulder issue which included an x-ray of my neck and the doctor mentioned that my neck had more arthritis than he would expect to see but since it was asymptomatic he wasn’t concerned with it. All good. The shoulder thing ended up being a SLAP tear that I have been pretty successful in rehabing on my own. Anyway, fast forward to this month on 8/14/24 and my neck started bothering me during my OHP work (160x4, 150x5, 135x5). My neck was in some serious pain for the next week and now 8/24/24, the neck is still somewhat painful upon waking in the morning but with some massage and stretching it pretty much leaves me alone during the day. Yesterday 8/23/24, I tried some OHP work and did 135x1, 110x3, 90x5 with no pain but 135 felt about as heavy as I could go without risking the pain coming back. I was trying to keep the weight limited to a weight I could lift while not tensing up my neck and 135 was on the verge of requring me to tense up. I felt like my neck was a bit more crappy than usual this morning when I woke up but with some massage and stretching, it feels pretty good, I can drive and look around and rotate my head around without any significant pain. I’ve read that people with neck arthritis should not do overhead pressing, can anyone offer some advice on this? I’ve read in the forum to make a point of not aggressively pushing my head back into the bench when bench pressing but what about OHP? If anyone can offer some advice on how to deal with neck arthritis while still trying to perform the barbell lifts I’d really appreciate it. I don’t think lateral raises will hold my attention for very long but I also don’t want to F myself up. Thanks.
It sounds like you had an episode of acute neck pain. I understand the temptation to link this directly to the prior findings on X-ray, but these things are a bit more complex. This isn’t to say there can’t be any relationship between the two, but it’s clearly more complicated than the presence of those findings on X-ray being directly causal of this pain. If it were that simple, you should have had pain all along, and it shouldn’t be rapidly improving within 2 weeks. There are several other variables like your training load, sleep/recovery, and many others, including random chance.
I would not restrict you from any particular exercises even with your previous X-ray findings, or with a diagnosis of neck arthritis. Rather, I would select exercises that fit with your goals, preferences, and load them based on your current tolerance. For example, the strategy you described on your 8/23/24 session is not how we would advise you to return to training a movement after experiencing an acute episode of pain like that. Our guidelines are laid out in more detail in these articles, which I’d recommend:
Thanks Austin, much appreciated. I’ll read the linked pages and make a plan.