How to Prevent Neck Injuries During Resistance Training Sessions?

How to Prevent Neck Injuries During Resistance Training Sessions?
By Guy Long

Although resistance training offers you with numerous health benefits in the form of fat loss, weight control, body transformation, overall muscular strength and more importantly, an attractive toned body, it can also lead to certain injuries especially neck injuries. Neck injury is considered as one of the most common types of injury that one can experience during strength training. However, with proper guidance and safety precautions, one can easily avoid sprains, torn muscles, neck injuries and even fractures during resistance training.

As far as proper guidance is concerned, it always makes a wise approach to perform resistance training exercises in the supervision of a qualified fitness trainer. A professional gym trainer not only recognizes exercises that may put extra stress on your neck, but also helps you to use proper lifting mechanics. Moreover, he or she guides you on how to perform different resistance training exercises with a perfect technique. Make sure that you strictly follow an exercise routine that your trainer suggests to you and don't choose the exercises on your own during the regular weight training session.

There are numerous safety precautions that one needs to follow during strength training sessions to avoid neck injuries. First and foremost, you need to be very careful when performing the shoulders, arms and upper back workouts as these exercises carry the risk of a neck injury. Shoulder exercises often require the placement of a weight bar across your shoulders. Make sure that the weight bar is evenly distributed across your shoulders and it doesn't rest on your neck. While performing squats, make sure that you don't put weight directly on your neck. Many people mistakenly position the weight bar too high on the shoulders which may pose an increased risk of injury to both lower and upper neck muscles.

In order to avoid neck injuries, it is important that you never over-train your body and you should work within your limits. Moreover, proper stretching is very helpful to prevent injuries to all parts of the body, including your neck. Always warm up your body with push-ups, rope jumping or running on a treadmill before starting a strength training exercise. You can also stretch your neck back and forth for a couple of minutes to increase the circulation of blood and prevent an injury to your neck.

Most importantly, you need to keep your neck immobile while lifting weights. During resistance training exercises, don't look around and always keep your neck muscles relaxed. Moreover, make sure that you neither lock the muscles in your neck nor keep the neck rigid as it can increase the risk of a neck injury. If you feel any sensation or pain in your neck while performing a strength training exercise, stop immediately and contact your gym trainer to discuss your situation.

Guy Long offers Personal Training in Prahran and is a Personal Trainer in St Kilda where he specializes in resistance training, body transformation, weight control, and overall muscular strength for local residents.

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