How To Avoid Cycling Neck Pain? Right Position Makes Prevention?
Tags: Neck Pain Treatment, Neck Pain, Riding, Cycling

Cycling neck pain is one of the most common nuances experienced by riders. It is quite understandable since cycling requires you to maintain a position where your back is arched for long periods, placing heavy pressure on your neck.

This post aims to bring about an overview knowledge of neck pain to cyclists, including the definition, its effects, root causes, and ways to relieve the pain or avoid it in the first place

What is neck pain?

You can tell you’re having neck pain if the pain is in or around the spine beneath your head. Sometimes, even such simple normal life actions as moving or turning your head and neck now seem like a real struggle to you.

Speaking of the time factor, neck pain can be acute (lasting from days to up to 6 weeks) or chronic (lasting longer than 3 months to years).

Cycling neck-shoulder pain

Due to the close connection of the nerves serving them, shoulder and neck pain is often mistaken for one another. Usually, you may feel a pain in the shoulder that’s coming from your neck and vice versa.

However, neck-shoulder pain, in which you feel the strain both in the neck and shoulder sections of your body, is the injury that crops up most often. Compared to solely neck pain, neck-shoulder pain is more complicated and therefore requires more effort to retreat

What are the detrimental effects of cycling neck pain?

Whether you’re an in-door cyclist or have been training for the Tour de France competition, apart from harming the cycling performance, a stiff and sore neck can harm both your physical health and mental health.

Radicular neck pain

Besides axial neck pain (the pain felt mostly in the neck), you can also have radicular neck pain (pain shoots into other areas such as the shoulders or arms). To cyclists specifically, neck pain usually shows up along with shoulder pain, as they are both the consequence of poor cycling posture.

Can neck pain give you a headache?

The answer is yes. When your neck muscles tense up, tension headaches are one of the probable results.

Other neck-related symptoms originated from long rides:

Pain and stiffness

Pins, needles & tingling into hands

Cold or burning sensation into hands

Grip weakness

Tennis Elbow/Golfer’s Elbow

Achy arm or hand

Feeling dizzy or light-headed

Chronic neck pain can lower your happiness level

Not only bringing about inconvenience during daily activities but chronic neck pain can also cause irritation, losing self-confidence and depression. The previous happiness and content while riding then would be replaced completely with pain and disappointment.

Here’s the good news: Just a few subtle changes can remove, or prevent the existence of neck troubles!

The root causes of neck pain

To answer the question “How can we alleviate the neck pain?” or “Which ways can a beginner avoid it during cycling training sessions?”, we need to discover the fundamental causes of it first.

Well, cyclists, it’s sad but it’s true, 99% chances are that your day-to-day neck postures and shapes are the culprit for your neck pain. Here are five common mistakes that sometimes even experienced cyclists can make, which lead to chronic neck pain:

Your bike doesn’t fit you:

If you ride an incorrect-size bike, for example, smaller or larger, or even with the unfit reach and stack, neck stiffness will inevitably happen. To put it simply, how can you have a proper posture on the bike that isn’t suitable for your height or your leg length?

A fitting bike helmet

A helmet that isn’t properly adjusted can affect comfort and then leads to neck stiffness.

Wrong posture

A strained neck from cycling hints that your cycling posture is placing undue stress on the neck.

How to treat neck pain?

Short-term treatments

Take a break

Taking a break from your bike until your neck pain diminishes will work. In the meantime, you can try some gentle stretches to make your neck feel better.

Treat the soreness with heat or ice

The neck pain from cycling actually can disappear itself if you decrease neck movements and better your cycling posture. However, to lessen the pain quickly, you can use heat or ice on the pain areas. If these areas feel swollen or warm, ice would do a better job!

Free up your neck muscles

Here is a tip: You can take a tennis ball or lacrosse ball and gently let it press into your neck to check if there’s any tightness, stiffness, or pain. Look sideways, up and down the front and back to assess progress.

See a doctor

If your neck pain radiates over the top of your head, numbness or tingling that shoots down the arms, or if the pain doesn’t gradually improve within two weeks, we suggest you go to see the doctor.

Long-term solutions

Decrease the pressure impacted on the neck

To anyone riding a road bike that has had any neck issues previously, tipping your head upward can aggravate arthritis in the neck, creating pinched nerves and contributing to spinal stenosis. So, your handlebars must be higher than your seat so less strain would be put on your neck and shoulder position.

When you get stronger in your riding position, you can lower the height of the handlebars but this must be done gradually.

Correct your cycling posture

As the wrong posture is the main culprit for cycling neck pain, the improvement in your cycling position will eventually relieve your neck pain.

Mobilize your upper back

To some extent, the neck connects to the upper back. Extending your neck to look forward on the bike requires a mobile upper back, and if you have backache, stiffness here can increase the load on your neck, leading to neck pain.

In this case, using a tennis ball or lacrosse ball, continually test and re-test the movements to see if there’s any progress.

Better daily neck positions

Don’t look down on daily minor bad habits. They may sound irrelevant, but they all add up to your cycling neck pain. Let’s nurture good habits regarding neck positions from today by holding your phone up higher, not letting it rest on your lap, or lifting your computer screen.

How to avoid neck pain when cycling?

Choose a proper bike and helmet

Correct size bike

It’s common knowledge that riding a correct size bike can help cyclists produce the most power while riding bikes. However, a bike that fits you would save you from neck dysfunction too.

First, bike manufacturers will label their bikes in sizes (small, medium, large) or with numbers (usually ranging from 48 to 62). The labels correspond to measurement in centimeters from the bottom bracket to the top of the top tube, which would help you save time and effort to find a good match.

However, remember, each manufacturer can have their way to measure their products, hence, just because a 49 from one brand fits you doesn’t mean that you can buy a 49 from another one.

You should also pay attention to the reach and stack measurements.

The reach refers to a centerline from the bottom bracket measured to the centerline of the head tube

The stack mentions the horizontal distance from the bottom bracket’s center to the top of the head tube’s central point.

These measurements will be used to determine if the bike will be perfect for a racer (a long reach and short stack) or should be better used for long, all-day rides (a short reach and high stack)

For example, let’s compare an S-Works Venge bike size 54 and an S-Works Roubaix bike size 54 both coming from the Specialized brand. With the same size, the first has a stack of 534 mm and a reach of 387mm while the latter has a stack of 585mm and a reach of 375mm. As a result, Specialized S-Works Venge is a racing bike, and Specialized S-Works Roubaix is an endurance bike.

Saddle height

Regarding saddle height, you can first place your bike parallel to a wall, then get onto your bike, place both hands on the handlebars:

When you place your feet on the pedal down to six o’clock, then put your heel on the peal, you should find your leg straight

When you go to clip in and put it back into normal position, your leg should be just slightly bent

Fitting bike helmet

A good-fitting helmet should fit snugly but not annoyingly tight. It should sit level on your head (not tilted back) with the front edge one inch or less above your eyebrows so that your forehead is protected. Push the helmet from side to side and back to front

Take the proper position

Make sure you ride with the correct posture in the first place. Pay attention to your body when cycling: Do you feel neck tension? In what ways is your body out of its natural range of motion? Stay aware of each aspect of your posture soon will save you from possible injuries later.

Relax your shoulders

Many cyclists find their shoulders slowly creeping up to the ears while riding, putting more stress on their shoulders, neck, and back. Besides, this doesn’t support shoulder check or moving the head around. Therefore, try to keep your shoulders down and relaxed.

Bend your elbows

Riding with locked-out elbows will make the ride becomes rougher. Thus, a slight bend added will act as suspension and keep any bumps on the road from tossing you overboard.

You should also keep your elbows tucked into your sides rather than out like wings as the stress on your shoulders, hands and wrists will be reduced.

Maintain a neutral spine

Your back should be relatively straight, not round outward, but also not locked or tensed into a line. You can keep your back straight by keeping your core engaged. If your abs are just taking a free ride, your back then would be round out, placing pressure on your hands, shoulders, and crotch.