& REHAB
HIPS DON’T LIE…?
A SURPRISING CAUSE OF NECK
AND SHOULDER PAIN
By addressing the underlying causes of musculoskeletal dysfunction you can help
your clients move better while eliminating recurrent aches and pains.
WORDS: JUSTIN PRICE
ne in four people suffer from
neck and shoulder pain (Leijon,
et. al., 2009), which affects their
ability to perform everyday activities like
lifting their arms to wash their hair or reach
a high cupboard. It also limits their ability
to participate in athletic activities and
dynamic exercises common to personal
training programs.
Typically, people with neck and shoulder
pain seek help from chiropractors,
physiotherapists, doctors and other licensed
O
medical professionals to alleviate their pain.
When their symptoms are under control,
they often turn to a personal trainer to begin
or continue a program of regular exercise.
However, once the client begins exercising
regularly and engaging in full-body dynamic
activities, more often than not their neck
and shoulder pain returns. This frustrating
situation often causes them to drop out of
training (IDEA, 2013).
So why does neck and shoulder pain
return so dramatically when clients begin
engaging in a program of regular exercise?
And what can you do, as a personal trainer,
to help identify and remedy one of the most
common, yet surprising, causes of neck and
shoulder pain?
Progressing from physical
therapy to personal training
When progressing from the controlled
environment
of
physiotherapy
office/
medical facility to a fitness/personal training
atmosphere, clients begin performing dynamic
exercises that challenge the body through
multiple planes of movement. While these
types of whole-body activities are necessary to
burn calories and stimulate energy producing
(and recovery) mechanisms, they also place a
large amount of stress on the musculoskeletal
system (Price & Bratcher, 2010). If one part of
the body is out of alignment when the entire
body is being stressed, compensations can
occur. Myofascial structures above and below
the imbalance must take up the slack to help
keep the body balanced as it moves. Over
time, these compensations can cause further
musculoskeletal imbalances, myofascial
restrictions and pain.
How an imbalance of the hips
affects the shoulders and neck
The large muscles of the lumbo-pelvic-hip
girdle (LPHG) such as the glutes, hip rotators,
abdominals, hip flexors and erector spinae
group (to name a few), dissipate tremendous
forces, namely gravity and ground reaction
forces, as they pass through the body
(Golding & Golding, 2003).
NETWORK SUMMER 2015 | 37