Hi Drs.
For the last 2 weeks I’ve had some consistent neck pain. It started one morning after waking up, and I thought it was just a typical crick in my neck. But here I am 2 weeks later and it hasn’t really gotten better. It’s fine when in a neutral position, but turning to the left or looking down causes the most pain, discomfort, and “stiffness”. Looking up creates a little pain, looking to the right is virtually painless. I’ve also had off and on upper back pain with it. Today I don’t have it, though.
Each day it gets marginally better at best throughout the day but it’s the worst in the morning for sure. I thought maybe it was my pillow so I tried a different one for a few days but didn’t see improvement. I also ordered a new mattress (needed one anyways) so I was hoping that would help quickly but so far it hasn’t.
Edit: It is causing a good bit of pain after a set of the press, enough that I switched a bench variation instead.
I figured this would resolve itself by now, like other aches and pains typically do, but since it hasn’t I’m looking for a treatment option. If you can make a guess at the cause of the pain that’d be fine, but if not that’s fine too because I don’t think it really matters to me. Thanks!
Have you tried slowly working into those bothersome ranges of motion with neck range of motion drills (looking up, down, side to side, bending your neck so your ear moves closer to the shoulder)? I would caution trying to make a bunch of changes in hopes of fixing this because there’s a good possibility it will continue to improve, provided you aren’t continuing to avoid movement(s).
Regarding the press, before removing the movement did you try adjusting the load on the bar?
You mean as far as how it feels? It’s mostly a dull pain coming from just to the left of center on the back of my neck. Sometimes it feels a lot stiffer than other times.
I have tried to go through all those ranges of motion pretty regularly to keep it from getting too stiff. For example, if I’m sitting in my chair at home and looking at my phone (head pointed down and to the right) for a while it REALLY stiffens up and makes turning left harder. So then I’ll spend a while turning my head in all directions to help loosen it back up. And sometimes while driving I’ll notice it’s really stiff when I try to look left.
Regarding the press, before removing the movement did you try adjusting the load on the bar?
Not after my set of 5 @8 (125 lbs). I felt perfectly fine during the warmups and wasn’t even really thinking about it. My last warmup was 105 lbs. Then I did the set of 5 @8 and the pain increased a lot after the set, and my “pain free ROM” was much smaller now. In fact, it was significantly worse for the rest of the day, I’d say the worst it’s been during the 2 weeks it’s been going on. It’s better than that today, more like what the other days have been like. I imagine I could warmup to 105 right now and be fine again, but I wouldn’t want to even try 125.
I know this is probably difficult to do much with online like this but I appreciate the help.
Sounds like you are on the right track by continuing to work into ranges of motion that have not been feeling particular great. Regarding the press, highly likely you increased intensity above a tolerable range you were ready to handle. Perhaps try easing back into the press with lower intensities (as you discussed) and then slowly building back up with linear progressions over time.