A pain in the neck

[chewy]

I have a bad neck, and have had for some time, largely due to 30 years of poor posture and manual labour!

Mainly painful when held in one position for long periods of time, so after about 35 miles my neck is stiff and hurting. By 50 miles i'm having to stop every 10 minutes to stretch out my neck, shoulders etc.

Been to chiropractors, and will see the Doctor soon but I think there is little to be done to rectify the problem fully, ie I think I just have a bad neck!

I am thinking that raising my handle bars may help though, as wont need to hold my head back to see, so much. Evans have a 30 degree stem for just over £30 (cant link, as posting on my phone in bed!) Has anyone had similar problems, or know of an even steeper stem?


All thoughts very welcome and appreciated

 

[Oldgit]

Had a similar problem and ended up getting NC-17 trekking pro bars: My link
I can't remember where I got them from but can find out later if needed.

 

[chewy]

Should have mentioned i'm on drop bars!

 

[Moby Jones]

I have a similar problem, where my hands are uncomfortable. The stem you mentioned from Evans looks ideal. I am going to drop into my LBS today and see what they suggest but i am not too confident in them. Are these stems easy to fit?

 

[corshamjim]

I've gone for the full sit-up-and-beg style bike option! To be honest in my case I discovered my ache was probably mainly just the cold air on my shoulder muscles and is now resolved on my road bike by wearing a better jersey which keeps me at the right temperature.

 

[Riding in Circles]

Come over to the dark side.

 

[jon.mithe]

I'm not a doctor / physio, but I have arbitrary neck problems as well, also through bad posture but by sitting at a desk 10hrs a day and what kicked it off was picking up a minor whiplash injury that compounded the problem. Its odd, I have a fair amount of strength and fitness (I play squash 3 times a week in a league to a fairly high standard), but get crippled by gentler endurance like posture stuff (e.g. sitting) (crippled may be taking it a little far, it isnt that bad ).

But if you have bad posture etc, then it could well sound like your core strenth in the mid/upper back + neck may also be too weak / lacking.

If this is the case, the core muscles cant support the head / upper body properly all the time and when they tire out they just punt and seize / lock up more as a hacked way of providing support. One side affect is feeling the the need to stretch the neck / muscles out after a while they are essentially complaining they are done for the day.

As long as there is nothing wrong with your actual skeleton (i.e. vertebrae are not stiff, no disc problems etc) then it sounds like you may benefit alot from building some core strength in the mid + upper back and neck.

So this really would involve some form of pilates, there's a bunch of exercises that focus on strength and endurance in that region. Also there's some exercises you can do with light weights (like 2kg) which focus more on building core strength not necessarily long endurance (you need both).

Would stress its core strength not actual "strength", i.e. going down to the gym and lifting 30kg is the wrong sort of strength / muscles.

Theres also some exercises (think they are isometric exercises) to strengthen the muscles that support + hold up the head.

The idea is you build strength in the core, and these muscles can then deal with the task of holding up the head (its very heavy) and hopefully complain less.

Hope that helps,
Jon

 

[tyred]

Do you wear glasses?

If so and you cycle in your normal specs, is it possible that they're sliding down your nose so you end up looking upwards to see through them? I had that problem with my previous specs and it did cause me to have a sore neck on longer rides.

 

[chewy]

Thanks all for the input. The core muscle problem may apply a little, will try and research that!

No glasses though, and am not about to join the dark side just yet! :-D