RECOVER: It's Such a Pain in the Neck

Spoiler Summary: Not too little (compressed), not too much (unstable), but -- a neck that moves right.

Last week I talked about the need for the body to "move right" and the fact that many times finding where the body does not move right and dealing with it quickly can prevent future problems.  Although a simple enough concept, to make it work in the real world requires knowledge of what you're looking at and why it matters.  Over the next few weeks I will discuss some of the more common patterns that my team sees.....starting from the top down.

The Neck

The neck (cervical spine) is a cluster of 7 bones which house the spinal cord, some major arteries and a few other key tissues that connect the brain to the body.  It is a highly mobile area of the body allowing for as many as 6 different motions in order to position the major senses to be most effective (sight, sound, smell and taste).  The benefit of all of the motion is that when it's working well and balanced, we can be highly attuned to our environment and the stressors we (literally) "face", allowing us to stay safe. The drawback, if it isn't working as well, the joints tend to compress, the blood supply to working tissues can be interrupted and everything from very painful headaches ("cervicogenic" headache) to pains anywhere along the upper extremity can result.

So what does "working well and balanced" mean?

Think of a sapling tree that's just been put into the ground.  It's got a ball of roots that have been placed into the ground and given some support by the dirt packed around it.  However, since the roots have not grown into the soil the trees is still easily moved.  Since nobody wants a crooked tree, the owner might place stakes in the ground and attach guy-wires, taking special care to keep them under the proper equal tension.  Assuming this equal tension is maintained, the tree (with good fuel and the right exposure/recovery balance) grows tall, straight and strong. 

The neck is under similar conditions. Without muscle tension to provide stability, the neck would crumble under the weight of the head. Too much tension ("muscle stiffness") on one side without equal opposing pressure on the other and the structure will lean or tip, compressing one side as it bends and pulling at the other.

Of course, since it's guy-wires are living tissue, the neck is a bit more complex than the sapling. With near constant flexing and bending to react to the world around us we are activating many of, but not all equally, the tissues that support the neck. For example, the more times we repeat a motion or the more hours we maintain a posture, the more we tell the body to alter the tension -- to tighten some guy-wires and relax others.  The more this happens, the more potential for uneven wear/tear and eventually aches & pains.

Perhaps the most common movement imbalance we see at the neck is a "forward head posture" which, just like the name implies, is the head sliding forward in front of the shoulders.  If you imagine a picture from the side, instead of the ear inline with the shoulder, we would see the ear is "forward", in front of the shoulder. This happens with gravity during sitting, driving, computer work and (more and more commonly) while using a mobile device.

Although the body can handle some exposure to this position, it's better in low doses as the bones/joints tend to shear on each other and we compress soft tissues as we compensate eventually contributing to a host of painful conditions. One of the most common early warning signs that go along with this posture is the "knot" in the side of the neck and the upper trapezius muscles -- sometimes painful enough to be labeled a "trigger point" as these muscles become overactive and overused while doing the extra work required in an attempt to make up for the poor position.

If forward and compressed is the problem, backward and elongated is very often the solution to restore balance and ease pressure. Sometimes it requires specialized exercises, sometimes it requires changes in work-position to impact posture and sometimes it requires both.  However once normal motion is re-established, rebalancing soft-tissue tension, including strengthening the front of the neck, and tissues that anchor the neck to the shoulder and upper back (the roots) is critical for a long term fix.

If you feel like your posture is "forward" or if you feel like you're losing motion in your neck, we hope you'll deal with it early - when it's easiest to do so. Let us know if you've got a pain in the neck that you're ready to deal with....it might be as simple as moving right!

Have a great weekend,

Mike E.