Do you get recurring neck pain when you wake up? Do you feel stiff? Or are a little achy and tense after a long day at the office? Here’s why.
Now, this is recurring neck pain and stiffness – not as a result of an acute injury, like whiplash from a car accident or falling on your neck and shoulders. In those cases, you should go to the doctor or the emergency room.
When it comes to neck pain, there are three primary causes for a stiff and painful neck. These are related but distinct. There are more reasons, but these are the big ones.
When you address these, you know that you’re hitting the biggest targets—the things that most people have issues with because they just don’t deal with them on a regular basis.
Poor Posture Means A Stiff Neck
The first one here is something that we talk about so often. Posture.
When you have forward head posture, you’re shortening up the area on the back of the neck.
Vertebrae in the cervical spine get into extension. When they’re stuck in extension all the time, that puts a lot of compression on the posterior aspect of the discs, causing disc height loss.
That’s known as disc degeneration.
Disc degeneration can also compress the nerves that pass through the cervical spine and feed the arms, hands, and forearms.
When you get those radiating symptoms, often, they result from compression through the cervical spine. That’s why the posture of the neck and related areas, specifically the thoracic spine, combine to cause forward head posture.
Posture is a big one. If you have poor posture, you’ve never worked on it before, and if you have neck pain, you need to address that.
Neck Instability Equals Neck Pain
The second one here is neck instability.
Neck stability or a stable neck results from having deep neck muscles, known as the multifidus and the even smaller rotatores and intertransversarii , working properly.
That serves two functions.
One is that because they’re local, they span one to two joints through the neck. They are able to stabilize each vertebra. Contrast that to a muscle like the levator scapula, which originates behind your ear and inserts on the top of the shoulder blade.
The levator scapula spans all of the cervical spine, so when it contracts, it can hold the spine still. But those little joints, they can still buckle and shift.
Whereas when the deep muscles of the neck contract, each pair of vertebrae is held stable and strong.
So, neck instability results from the deep muscles functioning improperly.
The other function that these deep muscles provide is proprioception. They tell your neck what’s happening and what position they’re in. They tell your brain what it needs to do so your muscles can react to these quick movements.
For example, if you have to turn your head quickly, these deep muscles can tell your brain, “Oh, we’re turning really quickly. What do we need to do? We need to activate the muscles in a certain way to keep it stable.”
When you don’t train those muscles, you lose those two functions: local stability and proprioceptive function.
Neck instability is a big problem if you want to overcome a painful neck.
The other part of that that I alluded to there is that when you turn your head quickly, you need that high-speed reaction time. You need the muscles to be able to react quickly. So that’s another aspect of neck and training stability that is found in the Neck Pain Solution.
We’ll teach you unique exercises to stabilize your neck in a high-speed situation.
Compensation for Shoulders Causes Muscle Fatigue
The third one here is compensation for shoulders.
I already mentioned the levator scapula muscle, which a lot of people have trigger points in, also known as muscle knots. It’s one of those muscles that often gets tight and taut. It’s constantly contracting because it’s doing the work of those deep muscles.
Like any muscle that constantly contracts without rest, the levator scapula fatigues. It gets overworked and sore.
Other muscles in the shoulders are really important to proper neck function. One of those, for example, is the lower trapezius.
Now, why would the lower trapezius be important for neck pain?
When you lift your arms overhead, three muscles contribute to what’s known as upward rotation of the scapula:
- Upper trapezius
- Lower trapezius
- Serratus anterior
I mentioned the lower trapezius, but the serratus anterior is another muscle that is really, really key for dealing with neck pain in the long term. If the serratus anterior and the lower trapezius are not working well, what has to pick up the slack? (And, they often don’t work well in people, especially when you’ve got poor posture.)
The upper trapezius and the levator scapula can help compensate. When those muscles work more than they should, they get tight, achy, sore, and ultimately weak.
And that’s why when it comes to dealing with neck pain, you’ve got to look at the shoulders and deal with these compensations that might be occurring in the neck. You’re getting pain there, but that’s where the symptom is. The root cause could be:
- Shoulder dysfunction
- Weak serratus anterior
- Weak lower trapezius
- Poor activation patterns
Different things could go wrong at the shoulders that cause the neck to be achy and painful.
These are three main reasons for a stiff and painful neck. There are other ones, but these are big ones. When you address these, you give yourself an excellent chance of dealing with your neck pain for the long term.
Next Steps
Now that you know the main reasons for a stiff neck, what’s the solution?
Start with posture. Do you have forward head posture? What about a hunched back?
The Best Exercise for Neck Pain Relief and Tightness – learn one simple exercise for neck pain relief that is safe and will quickly bring your pain down a couple of notches.
5 Exercises to Fix Forward Head Posture that Actually WORK – All sorts of problems stem from FHP, including breathing issues, arthritis, shoulder impingement, and neck pain.
These 3 Popular Thoracic Mobility Exercises WON’T Fix Your Hunchback – Most popular exercises for thoracic mobility aren’t enough to fix it. But we’ll show you exercises that will get you lasting results.
Or, you could skip right to the Neck Pain Solution. It’s going to guide you through many exercises in a progressive fashion that addresses these three main factors and more.
It starts you off safely and progresses you to the point where your neck can handle whatever you do with your life, whether that’s play tennis, golf, garden, or lift weights. Whatever you do, the neck pain solution will help you do it freely and without pain.
So if you’ve got neck pain, I hope to see you inside.
If you want to listen to Coach E’s explanation, click here to watch 3 Main Reasons for a Stiff, Painful Neck (and the SOLUTION) on YouTube.
“At 23 I was diagnosed herniated disc in my neck for the first time. I attended private exercises with various physical therapists, but year after year I felt worse and worse. I did a lot of back and neck stretching and the same exercises all the time without results.
At 29 I was diagnosed with serious multiple herniated discs in my spine and also stenosis in my neck and some doctors were worried even about possible full-body paralysis.
My overall stiffness decreased and my neck felt much more relaxed. Now I am able to enjoy my days again, to do long walks and even hiking and I still feel that I have the potential to further improve my condition.”
– Peter
