Your Neck Needs Training, Not a Standing Desk - The Training Solution for Tech Neck

Tech neck, also known as cervicalgia, can be defined as “a condition characterized by chronic pain and stiffness in the neck caused by prolonged and repetitive use of electronic devices such as smartphones, tablets, and computers.”

As manual therapists, we encounter numerous clients suffering from tech neck in our clinical practices. Unfortunately, we also hear and see the same patterns from people: they stretch, do yoga to improve their posture, have ergonomic chairs, standing desks, try cupping, see a chiropractor, get deep tissue massages, use a Theragun, and try acupuncture. All to no avail. Nothing helps them in the long term. 

While these practices and modalities are great, they only address the symptoms — pain and stiffness — ignoring key elements. 

Pain is a rabbit hole we can get into another time due to its complexity. Stiffness, however, is a behavior. Either of the nervous system or of the connective tissue. “Stiffness”, if assessed properly, will present to us, the practitioner, as mechanical tension (MT) or neurological tightness (NT). 

MT is perceived by us as manual practitioners and is identified as a finding within the connective tissue of an area. 

For example, if we were in a clinical setting, I would place my hand on the back of the neck on a specific tissue or tissues, move the person’s neck into a range of motion, and allow my hands to perceive the length-tension relationship. In other words, what behavior does my palpation-hand feel your tissue doing? I’m feeling the length-tension relationship of a person’s tissue. Do I feel a 1:1 ratio of tension per unit of length?

Another finding we may feel as practitioners is neurological tightness (NT). Whereby, I perform the same manual assessment I mentioned, but this time I don’t feel a steady rise in tension as I move the person; instead, I experience a rapid and global increase in tightness, and I feel a firm stop. This finding is a neurological behavior and a response from the nervous system. 

Each of these findings, mechanical tension and neurological tightness, is bunched into the term “stiffness” by our clients and by Googled definitions, but they are behaviors from two different systems. Thus, they need to be trained in such a manner and have their individual needs met. 

At ACCES, we train using a conjugate strategy, allowing us to train both the neurology (neurological tightness) and biology (mechanical tension) concurrently in the same training session. This way, the trainee doesn’t have to wonder which form of stiffness they have; each will be trained. 

In our recent Teck Neck Series, our goal with the training block is to decrease symptoms, improve overall joint and tissue health, and provide the trainee with a strategy if symptoms arise again. 

Our training focuses on:

• Improving joint function of the cervical spine. There are seven joints in the neck that we learn to control. 
• Improve connective tissue architecture. Normalizing connective tissue will allow better information flow to the nervous system, which will help decrease the neurological tightness. 
• Learn to use specific musculature to control fundamental neck function.
• Improving the ability to apply force into and from tissues while they are at length. 
• Learn to use the outermost and full ranges of motion that the neck is capable of. 

The training is designed to be short, simple, easy to follow, easy to do on your own, and can be done regularly to get you results quickly. 

If you would like to learn how to train your neck and be rid of neck pain, follow the link to week one of our Tech Neck series.