Whether you’re an athlete or someone trying to maintain your fitness, lifting weights is critical to both your health and performance. However, weightlifting can cause some unintended consequences. Don’t get me wrong, it is one of the safest activities you can do. Yet, if a few things are quite right it is easy to build up inflammation and pain.
In this instance, an athlete is experiencing neck pain with bench press and power cleans. I haven’t seem the athlete do these movement, but I have treated enough patients with the same history to make an educated guess. During both bench press and Olympic lifting, it is very easy to stress the rotator cuff and compress the neck. When we fatigue on these lifts our tendency is to hike the shoulders up to the ears. This puts the neck under severe compression and the rotator cuff under excessive tension. We should avoid this scenario as much as possible.
The latissimus dorsi is an amazing muscle that works to not only help us swim, but more importantly stabilize the torso from the shoulder all the way down to the pelvis. It is an amazing muscle that, with the help of others, will provide a hefty layer of protection against neck compression and rotator cuff over-use. Check out the video for specifics.
Hopefully this video helps you understand your body’s design and protect it from unnecessary injury. For more information or help, contact us for an appointment or request information on our virtual treatment system. We are seeing great success using it with current patients and those that are 100% remote.
Good Luck and #keepmoving
Dr.J