Posterior Neck Pain

Neck pain in the CrossFit community can be an issue.
These are some of the main culprits for aggravating your posterior neck pain:

- Handstand press ups
- Clean and jerk
- Snatch

These movements involve sudden head jerks where you push your head through the shoulders into an extended position. However, in doing this you could be straining the muscles, ligaments, tendons, and joints of your neck. Although you may not want to eliminate these jerks due to your commitments, it would be beneficial to find a way to minimise the impact of these and add some mobility and stability work to your routine. In doing this, it could also help with headaches that you may be experiencing.

Anatomy of the Posterior neck.

Generally, when someone complains about neck pain they are talking about the back of the neck. However, the neck is a structure comprised of a front (anterior) proportion, back (posterior) proportion and sides (lateral) proportion. In this article, I will only talk an out the posterior of the neck. The posterior neck is made up of 7 bones from Cervical spine 1 (C1),  through to cervical spine 7 (C7), 14 joints and multiple ligaments, muscles, and tendons attaching to this area. That is the basics.

Pain in the neck can be a multifactorial segmental diagnosis. The causes of the neck pain can range from problems with the structures listed above or could potentially be caused by other structures. So when dealing with your neck pain, make sure you take it easy and if pain persists see your healthcare professional. 

What can you do about it? 

You can start but taping your tennis or lacrosse balls together, yes plural meaning two, and placing them between your shoulder blades on either side of the spine and lay on them. Do not place heaps of weight onto these balls as it can be tender. Now that you are on top of these balls raise your arms up above your head, either by having the inside of your bicep muscles touching your ears or by moving your arms up into a snatch position. This is a good way to mobilise the thoracic spine and work the muscles that act upon the neck. 

For the next exercise, you can use either lacrosse or tennis ball. This will work into your traps. What is needed is either a rig or a door frame. Hold the ball on either the door frame or the rig and rugby tackle the ball into your trap. As your trap is pressing into the ball move your arm up and down and side to side, this will help mobilise the trap which will help your posterior neck. 

Take home message

Mobilise surrounding areas because they have influential factors