Neck Safety While Working Out

Hey, Dr. Ryan Alter your Delray Beach chiropractor. Today I want to talk about fitness and working out and how it affects the neck and what to be careful of. The key, the key when you’re working out when it comes to your neck, is that your neck is in a neutral position. Neutral, meaning the nose is straight out, the ears are level over the shoulder.

So this is neutral. So when you’re doing, say, a bench press activity, the neck is straight. It doesn’t start to go like this. When you’re doing, say a rope, pull down a tricep extension, we’re not looking over in the mirror. While we strain our neck doing this, okay? Always in a neutral position. Even with lower body things, the neck is neutral.

Even with a planking type thing, the neck is neutral. It’s not up in extension. You have to be careful ’cause you don’t realize, say in a, in a bent over row, people will look up like this. This is called extension. We want it neutral. Neutral so that if I took my whole body and came up, I’m in this neutral position.

We’re always anchoring to neutral. You’re not doing anything and talking to someone over there. You wind up tweaking your neck. We’re building muscle. We need to be in a neutral posture, an athletic posture with a neck position straight, no straight out. I hope that helps. We’re here in Delray to help you and everyone you know feel your best.