The Best Exercise for Neck Pain Relief and Tightness

Some of the exercises and stretches you’ll find for neck pain can actually do more harm than good.

In this article, you’ll learn one simple exercise for neck pain relief that you can do that’s safe and will quickly bring your neck pain down a couple of notches.

As always, you can follow along with the exercise in our YouTube video The ONE Best (and SAFEST) Exercise for Neck Pain & Tightness.

Let’s jump in.

What Causes Neck Pain?

The type of neck pain we’re covering today is the kind where it just kind of happens. It might cause you to be stiff, or maybe you can’t rotate your head very well. You wake up in the morning and have to turn your whole torso because turning your head hurts.

It suddenly comes on and just makes you stiff, stuck, and miserable all day.

It’s also worth taking a minute to think about what kind of activities usually leave you with neck pain. We see common things like:

• After you wake up in the morning
• After you’ve been working on the computer for a long time
• After a long drive
• After some kind of overhead activities (like painting a ceiling)

What happens anatomically when you get a crick in your neck?

You know when you’ve woken up after a deep sleep, and you know you slept in a weird position?

Some of the little joints in your neck and the muscles surrounding them are irritated. There may be a little bit of inflammation from the extra stretch of sleeping on the tissues in one position with the weight of your head for several hours.

The tissues just aren’t able to tolerate that load on your neck, so they’re complaining. They’re complaining by being a little tight and irritated.

Before we jump into the exercise, it’s important to check for red flags indicating there might be an underlying issue where you should see a doctor.

Red Flags of Neck Pain

What are some of the red flags you should look out for? Something that says, “hey, head to the doctor and get this checked out before trying to exercise your way out of it.”

We all worry about our necks. There are a lot of blood vessels and nerves. The spinal cord is always a big concern as well.

If you have any of the following symptoms, head over to your doctor, get cleared, then come back and do the exercise for neck pain relief:

• Severe headache
• Severe pain, epecialy burning pain that spreads down the arms, legs or into buttocks
• Feeling generally unwell
• Dizziness
• Weakness in your arms and legs
• Difficulty with balance and walking
• Loss of sexual ability
• Fever

6-Way Neck ISO Exercise for Neck Pain Relief

Now, just for curiosity’s sake, if you’re suffering from neck pain right now, just rate your pain out of ten. If you’re a 10/10, that’s super severe pain, which might be a red flag, and you need to see your doctor.

Rating your pain now will give you a reference point to see how you feel afterward.

This is the six-way neck isometric. Isometric means there’s no movement. You’re just activating the muscles.

We’re going to activate in different directions and positions so you cover all of the muscles in your neck.

Start off standing in neutral alignment. Keep your mouth closed with your tongue on the roof of your mouth for the whole isometric contraction.

Right side:

1. Put your right hand on the side of your head, above your ear
2. Push your hand into your head, using your neck muscles to keep your head in neutral alignment
3. Gradually ramp up activation to 50-70%
4. Hold for about 10 seconds while breathing naturally
5. Slowly release activation

Left side:

1. Put your left hand on the side of your head, above your ear
2. Push your hand into your head, using your neck muscles to keep your head in neutral alignment
3. Gradually ramp up activation to 50-70%
4. Hold for about 10 seconds while breathing naturally
5. Slowly release activation

Back:

1. Put your hand on the back of your head (skull, not on the soft neck part)
2. Push your hand into your head, using your neck muscles to keep your head in neutral alignment
3. Gradually ramp up activation to 50-70%
4. Hold for about 10 seconds while breathing naturally
5. Slowly release activation

Front:

1. Put your hand on your forehead
2. Push your hand into your head, using your neck muscles to keep your head in neutral alignment
3. Gradually ramp up activation to 50-70%
4. Hold for about 10 seconds while breathing naturally
5. Slowly release activation

Rotate Right:

1. Put your right hand on the right side of your head
2. Push your hand so you’re trying to rotate your head left, and use your neck muscles to keep your head pointing forward
3. Gradually ramp up activation to 50-70%
4. Hold for about 10 seconds while breathing naturally
5. Slowly release activation

Rotate Left:

1. Put your right hand on the right side of your head
2. Push your hand so you’re trying to rotate your head left, and use your neck muscles to keep your head pointing forward
3. Gradually ramp up activation to 50-70%
4. Hold for about 10 seconds while breathing naturally
5. Slowly release activation

Now rate your neck pain on a scale of zero to ten. Does it feel better? Does it feel worse? No change?

Why The 6-Way Neck ISO Helps

This exercise for neck pain relief gets all of the muscles in the neck turned on. Muscles just feel better when they’re doing what they’re supposed to be doing.

Like when you have a crick in your neck, the muscles tense up, and that causes some stiffness and tension, leading to headaches and stuff like that.

So if we can turn these muscles on, we can tell the brain, “okay, we’ve got some stability there. Those muscles are actively working and we can relax a little bit.”

Also, if there’s some excess muscle tension, you can release some of it by activating the muscles.

Hopefully, this has helped relieve some of your pain. You can use these isometrics throughout your day to keep your neck pain-free.

Next Steps

If these isometric exercises helped tone down your pain, the next step is addressing any muscle imbalances. Maybe you slept funny last night, but if you have neck pain more than once in a blue moon, try these next two exercises to get your muscles activated and in alignment.

Read more on 5 Exercises to Fix Forward Head Posture.

Read more on How to Fix Neck Stiffness: 3 Exercises for a Stiff & Sore Neck.

Finally, we want you to have a free cheat sheet with exercises for low back pain. We find a lot of people complaining that they get low back pain on some days with neck pain or thoracic back pain on others.

These exercises will help get even acute back pain under control so you can get back to doing what you love to do.

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This article was reviewed and updated on January 4, 2023 by our Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Erin Boynton, MD, FRCS to include new research and information on latest surgical developments. Read more about Dr. B here.