Serious neck pain

[JiP]

ok i was doing standing presses during my rippetoes workout and after i finished my 1st set of press my neck seriously ****ing hurts, the back hurts, i can barely move it. i'll upload a video of the press i was doing now. it only hurt after i put the barbell back on the floor

note - it is NOT my shoulder that hurts, it is the back of my neck on the right

[Sick Puppy]

Okay, the weight was too much, as your form started to lose it- you had to really hoist it up to your shoulders, and you jutted your neck forwards from about the third rep onwards when lifting the bar overhead.

Now, when your neck feels better, stretch your arms upwards and jut your neck forwards. I'm betting you'll feel it in exactly the same spot hurting now- a line across the neck right at the base.

Taking a punt, you've either impinged a nerve or one of the neck muscles under your trapezius has gone into spasm. I say this since this was pretty much what I did a while back, and neck was sore for ages- pretty much entire trapezius went into spasm.

Ice it, see a doctor/physio- neck injuries are not to be trifled with or worked through. Generally muscles go into spasm as something is damaged, so it locks to keep the area stable to enable recovery. In an area filled with nerve clusters running to the rest of the body, havoc can ensue if bits start getting impinged... Besides, GP visits are free there!

When you get all clear from Doc (e.g they haven't put you in a body cast) and the pain is largely gone, get the area moving, gently stretching it out to relax the muscles, moving neck side to side, backwards & forwards, keeping lead in place each time to get blood run through the stretched muscles. Shoulder shrugs and rotations help too. Good to try this in the shower too, running hot water over the area while stretching.

Yeah it's uncomfortable, but will feel better in time. Hope this helps.

[JiP]

Okay, the weight was too much, as your form started to lose it- you had to really hoist it up to your shoulders, and you jutted your neck forwards from about the third rep onwards when lifting the bar overhead.

Now, when your neck feels better, stretch your arms upwards and jut your neck forwards. I'm betting you'll feel it in exactly the same spot hurting now- a line across the neck right at the base.

Taking a punt, you've either impinged a nerve or one of the neck muscles under your trapezius has gone into spasm. I say this since this was pretty much what I did a while back, and neck was sore for ages- pretty much entire trapezius went into spasm.

Ice it, see a doctor/physio- neck injuries are not to be trifled with or worked through. Generally muscles go into spasm as something is damaged, so it locks to keep the area stable to enable recovery. In an area filled with nerve clusters running to the rest of the body, havoc can ensue if bits start getting impinged... Besides, GP visits are free there!

When you get all clear from Doc (e.g they haven't put you in a body cast) and the pain is largely gone, get the area moving, gently stretching it out to relax the muscles, moving neck side to side, backwards & forwards, keeping lead in place each time to get blood run through the stretched muscles. Shoulder shrugs and rotations help too. Good to try this in the shower too, running hot water over the area while stretching.

Yeah it's uncomfortable, but will feel better in time. Hope this helps.

so you think my form caused the injury? i thought my form was actually alright on the press haha. thanks a lot for the post, i'll be seeing a doctor a bit later so hopefully he can tell me what i've done wrong

and i thought you were supposed to push your head backwards and forwards when you were pressing : <

repped

[Victim]

Try a slower action with a bit of a pause at the bottom, this will allow you to concentrate on your form a bit more and not just hope it all goes well.and definitaly drop a little weight off the bar. do it this way and i think you will noticed a better burn with less weight.but get the neck fixed up first before attempting anything more.

[JiP]

Try a slower action with a bit of a pause at the bottom, this will allow you to concentrate on your form a bit more and not just hope it all goes well.and definitaly drop a little weight off the bar. do it this way and i think you will noticed a better burn with less weight.but get the neck fixed up first before attempting anything more.

ahh thing is i'm doing rippetoes and constantly trying to add weight, last time i pressed i managed 5 / 4 / 4 with 32kg and this time i was going for 5 / 5 / 5. i think if i wasn't pushing myself to constantly improve then my form would probably be fine, but i can't get it perfect everytime when trying to progress

[Sick Puppy]

so you think my form caused the injury? i thought my form was actually alright on the press haha. thanks a lot for the post, i'll be seeing a doctor a bit later so hopefully he can tell me what i've done wrong

and i thought you were supposed to push your head backwards and forwards when you were pressing

In a word, no. Well, not in anything that I've ever read anyway.

In your video your head is clearly jutting forward, and the moment I saw it, I went Bingo! That's what I did to my neck a week or so ago, and when I spoke to my physio about it, she went yup, you never lead with your neck, only with your chest (same principle for seated/cable rows too). When performing the shoulder press, think of it as standing as proud and tall as you can (good posture allowing), with your chin tucking in towards your Adams apple. Of course there is the issue of making sure the bar doesn't collect you on the way up or down, but then if it was simple everybody'd be doing it, wouldn't they?

This was pretty much the exercise she gave to me to help my neck heal, standing straight, and moving head back while tilting chin towards AA.

Hope this helps, thanks for the reps

[jason_bh]

In a word, no. Well, not in anything that I've ever read anyway.

In your video your head is clearly jutting forward, and the moment I saw it, I went Bingo! That's what I did to my neck a week or so ago, and when I spoke to my physio about it, she went yup, you never lead with your neck, only with your chest (same principle for seated/cable rows too). When performing the shoulder press, think of it as standing as proud and tall as you can (good posture allowing), with your chin tucking in towards your Adams apple. Of course there is the issue of making sure the bar doesn't collect you on the way up or down, but then if it was simple everybody'd be doing it, wouldn't they?

This was pretty much the exercise she gave to me to help my neck heal, standing straight, and moving head back while tilting chin towards AA.

Hope this helps, thanks for the reps

Where exactly was your injury? Was it at the base of your neck or a little further downward. The reason I ask is because I went to the doctor yesterday and got some cortisone shots in my upper back area. I was thinking that I hurt it while doing rack pulls but I was also doing military presses that day.

My pain is in between my shoulder blades about just a few inches below my traps.

[grv575]

I did the exact same thing (doing db presses) to my neck/traps. Just went to hard. Doc said that since it wasn't a crushing blow to my neck that I didn't have to worry about a neck brace. You can either get a soft brace (they velcro on) if it hurts holding your neck up all day, or go without.

Doc said the best thing to do is ice. Get one of those plasma ice packs that you can microwave or put in the freezer (get 2 ). They never get too cold and you can do hot/cold with them as well. She said the hot is optional but do ice after you do hot therapy. Took like 4 weeks before the pain was gone. Then you have to wait like another 4 weeks before I'd train the traps - just cut out overhead pressing & rows even. Once you do work those exercises back in you have to go really light - I reinjured it slightly even going light, so don't get too ambitious even when you think it's healed pretty well (oh, and it does heal better overall if you do real light sets to rehab it after it's healed for like 1-2 months - it seems some light muscle building stimulus helps it heal fully and protect againt atrophy and never healing quite correctly).

[JiP]

thanks for the informative replies guys. i hurt it on monday and today's wednesday and it feels alright really. still a bit stiff and i still don't have the full range of motion but not much pain. i'll be lifting today, but i'll do less weight more reps today so i don't strain myself

[Sick Puppy]

Where exactly was your injury? Was it at the base of your neck or a little further downward.

Starts at the base of my neck where it meets the Trap and radiates into the trapezius towards the scapula.

[glock997]

Hey jip just wondering ifyou had any issueswhen you started lifting after the injury I was military pressing andn couldn't move my neckfor the rest of the day .After a day or two no pain except sometimes when I move my neck at the base and my whole upper back is super tense. It's been 2 weeks