Trapezius pain! (163K reps for help)

[fishpat86]

A few weeks back I was doing standing skullcrushers with a ez curl bar and on the last rep of my last set my form slipped and I jerked my neck forwards to prevent my arms folding behind me. I felt a sharp pain and instant stiffness in my neck so I stopped. I did the hole icey/cold thing and after a few days it felt better. I used the injury time to take a week off training and resumed with a light session the following week. Pull day went fine but after push day my neck felt sore again. I left it a few days and felt fine but after last nights push session it seems to have flared up again. It doesn't feel like my neck now though, it feels like it is further towards my right shoulder blade. I am pretty damn sure it's my traps that I have injured and I am wondering if anyone knows what sort of time length I should leave it before I do any more training and if I am ok to do my push and legs session while leaving out pull for a couple of sessions?

[Brenden061]

There's questions not "how long should you leave it alone", but "what protocol should you be following to rehab a neck/upper extremity injury".



I hope you have health insurance.

Good luck.

[MikeWines]

^I would agree with the poster above me. Sometimes reducing training load or intensity will break the cycle of inflammation but given the information that you've provided, that seems to not be the case. I would recommend looking into some functional anatomy to get a better idea of what could be tight/stiff. It may also be a brachial plexus issue which runs within the shoulder and down the arm. If you notice any sort of numbness or burning down the arm, it would be wise to get that checked out. Generally, it also always a good idea to keep the neck in a packed or neutral position to ensure safety to the cervical spine.

This includes some excellent neck rehab exercises as well as diagnosis & assessment: http://www.hillcroftmed.com/medical-...in-frazier.pdf

Hope it helps, good luck mate.

[KBKB]

A few weeks back I was doing standing skullcrushers with a ez curl bar and on the last rep of my last set my form slipped and I jerked my neck forwards to prevent my arms folding behind me. I felt a sharp pain and instant stiffness in my neck so I stopped. I did the hole icey/cold thing and after a few days it felt better. I used the injury time to take a week off training and resumed with a light session the following week. Pull day went fine but after push day my neck felt sore again. I left it a few days and felt fine but after last nights push session it seems to have flared up again. It doesn't feel like my neck now though, it feels like it is further towards my right shoulder blade. I am pretty damn sure it's my traps that I have injured and I am wondering if anyone knows what sort of time length I should leave it before I do any more training and if I am ok to do my push and legs session while leaving out pull for a couple of sessions?

I can't say for certain that this is going to help with your problem, but...

I've been amazed at the number of aches and pains that I've been able to eliminate in my own body through trigger point therapy. Trigger points are small knots in the muscle which can refer pain to some other area, though many times, they cause pain in the area of the knot as well. If you press on them hard enough, they'll hurt, which is one technique for finding them. These knots in the muscle can often times be broken up via massage, either by a therapist or by yourself, perhaps with the aid of a massage tool. The reference that I most often use to figure out where and how to massage is The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook.

I created a thread in the equipment section a while back about some of the massage tools that I use. Here's a link:

http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showth...hp?t=137619833

When I experience pain in my traps or shoulders, the tool I go to most often is the Body Back Buddy. It's the blue tool in the photo below:



The knobs on either end of the "S" shape are great for working on knots in the back and shoulders. The pointy one at the upper left is especially good for working through dense muscle.

[riseboi]

If a patient were to describe your mechanism of injury and type of pain to me, right 1st rib dysfunction would be one of a few areas I might further examine.

[Thai_Clinch]

If a patient were to describe your mechanism of injury and type of pain to me, right 1st rib dysfunction would be one of a few areas I might further examine.

the rib area ? I am also experiencing the same type of pain. where i felt pain in my upper ribs, up into the left side of my neck/shoulder.