Hi, I’m Dr. Molly with Your Goals Physical Therapy. If you love working out, but you also have neck pain and you are trying to get back into your normal routine of working out, but you’re cautious and you’re really curious what exercises might be injuring your neck or might be adding more stress, and you just wanna know what you should be avoiding. This video is perfect for you.
In this video, I’m gonna go over the history of neck pain that a client of mine, Rea, had. It was pretty extensive, but I really believe that many people have had the exact same experiences. So that’s what I want to go over so that I can help you get back to working out the way you want too without worrying about your neck. So, let’s get started.
Reya started having neck pain when she was about 20. Like yourself, she doesn’t really remember the exact time that it started, but she has memories of being in college and having some significant neck pain. But it was the standard neck pain. You wake up, you can’t turn your head, everybody ignores it. Few days later, you’re fine, especially when you’re 20. The beauty of being 20, right? In her twenties when this first started, it would last for a day, maybe two, and she would be fine.
As the years went on, she can recall that that discomfort in her neck, waking up in the morning, not being able to turn, happened more frequently and also happened with more intensity. Like the pain was worse, it would interrupt more of her day.
Driving became drudgery, concentrating for long periods of time while that pain was there, it would be very difficult because the pain would be so severe. It also interrupted her sleep. If she woke up on Monday with neck pain, then for two days she wouldn’t be able to really get a good amount of sleep.
To hear her tell it she would be laying in bed and she said “I knew I had to turn over, but I was questioning whether it was worth the sudden increase in pain because I knew that no matter which way I went, if I turned to my right, turned to my left, tried to lay on my back, there would be initial like severe pain and then it would go away”. But it was just having to like bear through that initial rolling over. It’s just miserable.
Now here she is, she’s in her forties and “the pain just keeps coming and it’s interrupting everything. It makes doing laundry a chore, more of a chore. Laundry’s already a chore. Now it’s more of a chore doing the dishes, driving my kids to school.
The real thing now is that my husband and I have decided that we need to add working out to our everyday life. So this was a lifestyle choice that we’ve done. “We spend some of our quality time together working out. We encourage each other with these sports goals that we have, like being able to lift a certain amount, being able to run a certain distance. Each of us have our own goals, but we do this together.
This is our time and we’re trying to instill these values into our kids as well. This has been a big part of our family structure. It’s not just working out, it’s all this other quality time that I’m missing out on because I keep getting these severe neck pain.
A few years before she decided – before she talked to me, she had gone in to get an MRI because the pain was so bad, it was interrupting sleep.
Like I said, her and her husband had been implementing working out into their daily lives. So this was just affecting too many aspects of her life not to go have this looked at. She has the MRI. The MRI does come back – she has a disc bulge. To add a little bit into this, a disc bulge is when the discs or the cushion between two vertebrates, so the bones in your spine when that, so there’s a disc between two bones in your spine when they compress and become distorted. So it no longer has its original shape, that’s a disc bulge.
The bulge can vary in size from something very minor all the way until what they would call herniation, which is when that bulge actually erupts. The cushioning or the squishy gel that’s inside of that disc now comes out and the chemical inside the disc irritates your nerves and causes other problems.
The disc is still intact, it’s just shaped wrong. It’s not the original shape. So that’s what the MRI showed for her. So back to Reya’s story. So when she got that diagnosis, the doctor said that it wasn’t necessarily something that she would have to jump into surgery for, that she should try physical therapy.
She went to physical therapy and they had her doing stretches, but they never really explained what the stretches were supposed to do or what would happen long term. They did tell her that she shouldn’t be doing certain exercises because it was gonna aggravate things.
She didn’t notice a whole lot of change doing these simple exercises they were having her do. So she stopped going after three or four sessions. Her statement to me was that she just didn’t feel that they were making anything better. She didn’t notice a dramatic reduction in her pain.
The medication the doctor had given her was getting rid of more of the discomfort than anything she thought was happening at therapy. So again, she just stopped and eventually it took a while, but she said that the pain went away and life went on as normal.
Fast forward three years when we’re having this conversation and the pain has come back with a vengeance. It’s been there for three or four weeks. She has not been able to get rid of it. The second MRI said that the disc bulge had gotten a little bit worse.
The doctor said that it still wasn’t quite to the point of needing surgery and that she should try physical therapy, which is what prompted her call to me.
She has the history, right? Why would you talk to a physical therapist? She was very adamant when she called. She knew exactly what she wanted. I don’t wanna do a full round of therapy. I don’t see the point, but I do know that the last therapist said I shouldn’t be doing these exercises, but I don’t remember what those ex exercises are and that’s all I want.
I said, okay, well I will answer any question that you have. I will need to do an evaluation just so that I can answer that question truthfully and give you the best information. So she came in for the eval Anybody who spends any time with me realizes I like to talk and I absolutely love educating people about their bodies and how things move.
So during an eval, it is very hard for me to stay within the confines of an hour because I talk the whole time about what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. Answering whatever questions. I think some people think this is a bit of oversharing, but I find that a lot of people think it’s disconcerting when you have somebody who’s poking you, moving you and bending you in weird directions and they’re not really telling you anything and they’re just. Okay. And writing down on the chart. I don’t like that when I go to the doctor so I think I overcompensate a bit, but I digress.
So when Reya came in, I was looking at her neck, pointing out, okay, this is tight. Can you feel it? This is not as strong. Can you tell this? This is the standard. This is what we were looking for. Can you see how that’s not the same? I got to her posture, pointed out how her shoulders were and where they really should be and how that can add to extra strain to your neck.
I talked about teeth grinding, being stressed out and how that can affect your neck. Then I got a little bit lower on her spine and I was having her move her lower back and she gave me this really skeptical look. She’s like, “isn’t that a little far down to be affecting my neck?” I was able to show her, through her own movements, how whatever’s happening at your lower spine affects your upper spine, like your neck and vice versa.
So whatever you do with your head can oftentimes affect what’s happening in your lower back. So if one part is not stable, typically the other part is not stable either. Because it is one spine, it’s all connected.
After showing her that she said “that makes a lot of sense because I do have back pain and it’s typically worse than my headaches and other things will start to happen in my neck. I never put that together because my lower back pain is really minor. I barely notice it compared to what happens in my neck”. We did spend some time, I was able to show her specific exercises that she should not be doing, so that answers her original question.
There are certain movements, for instance, especially if you’re having a lot of neck pain, you shouldn’t do anything that causes you to shrug. For some people that’s overhead pressing, even pull downs – anything that makes you shrug. And or things like lateral raises and front raises can cause you to shrug your shoulders.
So I went and showed her that. Nothing that makes you shrug your shoulders and nothing that makes you extend your neck because all of that uses the muscles that are typically tight in somebody’s neck that is having these types of pains like having disk bulges and other instability in your neck.
Those back muscles are typically very, very tight. So doing things that make them even more tight – exasperates, you’re already injured neck.
When we got done with the end of the eval she shocked me actually. She said “so you can show me how to fix all of these things. All these things you’re pointing out?” I said “yes”. She asked “about how long would that take?” I was able to explain the variations and how that would work for her. And she thought that sounded like a plan. So we’ll get started with that.
At her six month follow up, she definitely did not have any more neck pain. We hadn’t seen each other for six months because we finished up that plan that I talked to her at the eval.
We had addressed all the strength deficits we had talked about how to keep her spine stable and avoid certain things while she’s working out with her husband at that six month follow up. She said “I can’t believe it! I haven’t had any neck pain the whole time, since I stopped working with you to now – nothing! I haven’t had any interruptions of my sleep. I haven’t had to worry about needing surgery. It’s like I don’t even have a disc bulge at all in my neck”
“In fact, we’re able to work out so much better. We’ve been so much more consistent with our workouts that we have goals now that I would’ve never thought about having. I’m very excited about going into this next year because I think I might actually be able to achieve my fitness goals without worrying about my neck”. She continued, “this has been absolutely amazing. I’m so thankful!”
That is what I absolutely love to do. I like to be able to help people get back to working out and even bust through goals or achievements that they wouldn’t have thought were possible. Because most of the time when you have neck pain or any other pain, it is really hard to see past the end of that.
It’s very hard to see that life can be pain free again, especially with things that you’ve been dealing with for 20 plus years. There really are amazing things that our body can do if we help it heal, and we help it learn how to move better.
So if this is the type of service that you are looking for feel free to click the button below that says, “ask about cost and availability”. You’ll fill out a simple rule form and then my office will give you a call and we’ll set something up with you.
If you have very specific questions or not so specific questions that you’d like to ask me or another therapist at the office, feel free to click the button below that says, “talk to a therapist” because we love questions. Questions are amazing and you really should make sure that wherever you go, they’re the right fit for you.
So when you fill out the little form after clicking the button my office will set up a time so that we can have a 20 minute chat with you. Until we chat, I hope you’re having a great day.
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All information on this website is intended for instruction and informational purposes only. The authors are not responsible for any harm or injury that may result. Significant injury risk is possible if you do not follow due diligence and seek suitable professional advice about your injury. No guarantees of specific results are expressly made or implied on this website.
