WHY DOES MY NECK HURT AFTER PULL-UPS?

Hi, I’m Dr. Molly with Your Goals Physical Therapy. I was asked a question just the other day and it was: why does my neck hurt after I do pull-ups? I thought that was amazing because I have my own personal story with this. In this video, we’re gonna talk about why that happens. I’m also gonna go over the anatomy, which will help explain why it happens and then how you get rid of it right now.

Like if you’re at home dealing with this, what do you, what can you do then? And if it persists what you can do, if it persists. So let’s start with the story.

I’m gonna tell myself, so just the other day I was doing pull-ups and I workout in my house and I thought I had one more in me. I go up and I pull down and, you know, my whopping, you know, two or three of those, and I did not have that last one.

I immediately felt my neck tighten up and I knew that I was gonna be uncomfortable. It was just a matter of how uncomfortable. So the next day I woke up and I spent the whole day driving, turning my whole body. Every time I had to look to the right, I really hoped my kids would stop screaming and trying to get my attention to the right. I really wanted them to yell to the left. Because it just hurt, It was just bothersome. I won’t say it was agony, just bothersome to turn my head to a certain range.

Of course I got down and I did my exercises and I ice my neck and I did all the things that I’m about to tell you to do. It was fine within a day or so.

I know now what I have to do to make sure that won’t keep happening to myself.

Now let’s talk about the anatomy. Why on earth, if I’m doing a back exercise, does my neck hurt?

So we have something called your upper trap. It’s a muscle that runs from your skull down to the top of your shoulder. It’s a great muscle, It does lots of amazing things. Two of which are, it shrugs your shoulders and it makes your head turn to the side. The interesting thing is that it can do kind of both at the same time, right?

We can kind of bring it in all at the same time. When we do things where our arms are over our head, a lot of times we recruit that muscle without really knowing it. It’s not actually supposed to help us when we do pullups, but it is normally much stronger than the muscles in our back that are actually supposed to be helping us do that Pull up. That if we get fatigued, tired, we’re not paying attention to our form. Then it will take over automatically without us paying attention and help us do that exercise.

Again, since it does two things at once at our neck, if we’re really trying, we’re really pulling everything in, then it’ll cause a big muscle spasm. That muscle spasm is typically what makes it very uncomfortable to turn, because that muscle is just so locked in that it’s not able to relax. That is basic anatomy. Because again, the pull down is supposed to be working like your lats help. You know, your rhomboids help, lower traps help middle traps.

All those muscles in your back, like your upper back are supposed to be helping you pull yourself up and lower yourself back down. The upper trap tends to be stronger than a lot of those muscles. If one of them gets fatigued, it takes over and we end up in this scrunched position and then we end up with a muscle spasm, which can take a couple days to get rid of.

How do you get rid of it if you’re dealing with this right now? How do I make it stop? So you would start with ice. I know everybody wants to do a hot pack, obviously if it doesn’t help and try the hot pack, but I’m gonna tell you right now. You’re probably gonna get more out of it. If you just take a bag of frozen peas or carrots and just put it on your neck for about 10 minutes, get into as much of a comfortable position. You don’t necessarily wanna be walking around, you want to have your elbow supported, so your shoulder can really relax.

You just wanna sit there for about 10 minutes with that go on anywhere from anywhere along the line of your neck to your shoulder. After that you’re just going to gently move. What do I mean by that? I mean like little motions bringing your ear to your shoulder, like just repetitive little motions, not big. If you get to that part where you’re like Ah it ain’t going any further, then you just stop.

The same thing with rotation bringing your chin to your shoulder, you just go little bits and little bits, nice and smooth. I get tired of counting personally, I’ll just have a timer and I would do maybe a minute. I’m going fast in this video, but you don’t have to go that fast. It’s just little itty bitty motions just to the point of being irritated and then come back. What I would do if you’re dealing with this is side bending and I would do rotation, if you want, you can tuck your chin down if that helps too.

Now we have ice and those gentle emotions. The other thing that you can try, which you have to be very gentle on putting a giant asterisk here, you could stretch. The motion that you wanna stretch is getting your ear to your shoulder. You don’t necessarily have to pull your head down and have your arm behind. Honestly, at least for me, if I do this to myself and I have a giant muscle spasm, that’s a little aggressive for me.

Just letting your head hang and getting used to just the weight of that is enough of a pull that I get a good stretch. I don’t get pain after it and I get a lot more out of it. So just letting it just gently rest that way and then come up. That can be very aggressive. So I would just do that for 30 seconds. Maybe a minute twice. You don’t need to do too much more.

Now I would say over 50% of the people who accidentally do one too many pull-ups, they’re gonna be perfectly fine with one or all three of those. It does happen that maybe your muscle spasm is a little bit more aggressive or maybe you already had something going on with your upper trap.

This might be a lingering thing. Now you’re getting into week two or three, and you’re still just having this nagging sensation. I would come and see a movement specialist or a physical therapist. The reason I would is because there could be something else going on between your shoulder and your neck, that complex, that is making this last too long.

There’s no reason to give up doing pull ups, which is a perfectly wonderful exercise, or slowing down your workout program because of a minor muscle pull that might just need something else to be corrected. This could be the symptom of something else that’s not balanced. It doesn’t have to be a massive overhaul to correct that if you’re strong enough that you’re trying to do pull-ups, whatever is happening is more than likely not something that’s gonna be super devastating.

There’s a lot of bones in your neck. There’s a lot of bones in your shoulder complex and in your upper back. A lot of random things could be going on, that you’re not gonna be able to figure out on your own. I mean, it’s just too many variables. Having somebody be able to watch how you’re moving, how you injured yourself. Actually feeling what’s going on in your body is gonna be the fastest way, the most efficient use of your time to get you back to working out with the least amount of rest. So let’s not put off getting back to those pull-ups, let’s start with these simple range of motion, stretching exercises.

Then if that doesn’t work, why don’t you try to contact my clinic and we can help you. I’ll give you two ways to be able to do that, just to make it as simple as possible for you. I will offer you a phone call. You can just call the clinic and I’ll set up a link below that will kind of fast track that for you. We’ll set up a time that’s more convenient for you. I don’t just randomly call you.

And or a discovery visit. So maybe you wanna come in and see the clinic, meet me in person and make sure that I truly can do what I’m telling you I can do. Then we can certainly meet in person. I call those discovery visits. They are free. They are 20 minutes long, and it’s a time for us to be able to meet. You’ll get to ask me questions, we’ll go through maybe a brief movement screening just to make sure that I’m the right fit for you and then we can plan going forward.

So whatever that looks like for you, I hope that this video has been very helpful and I hope that you get back to doing those wonderful pull-ups as soon as possible. Bye

If you would like more information checkout on of this blogs:

Stop Neck Pain While Staring At Your Phone

Picking The Best Pillow For Your Neck

Did You Wake Up With A Stiff Neck This Morning

Holy Neck pian

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