Neck Placement #2 - A Technical Discussion

The issue of the neck placement during your Pilates workout is still on my mind, so I guess I just need to talk more about it!! For this article, I will look only at one key issue: dominant muscles versus underutilized muscles. First of all, let's get some background. Everyone has groups of muscle tissue throughout their bodies that retain excess tension consequently becoming much shorter and tighter than the surrounding muscle fibres, which in turn, become too weak and soft. This type of imbalance exists in everyone, and for each person, there will be a threshold that, once reached, makes the region of the body associated with the imabalance prone to pain and injury. When the pain starts, we run off to the massage therapist or chiropractor or accupunturist and so on, but the treatments don't always produce a permanent change in the muscle tissue. The key to success lies partly in developing tone in the underutilized muscles of the region exhibiting pain. Let's take the neck for example. Let's say you have a chronically tight upper trapezius, amongst other muscles in the area, which sometimes even flare up, creating sharp pain and greatly limits range of motion in the neck. The trapezius alone is a 3 part muscle: upper trapezius, mid trapezius and lower trapezius. More often than not, if the upper trapezius fibres are very short and tight, the lower trapezius fibres will be elongated and relative to the upper traps, also weaker. As the upper trap fibres continue to shorten and tighten, the cervical spine (neck) can be compressed and all types of pain can ensue including headaches, disc pain, nerve pain and so on.

As such, during the Pilates workout, the upper traps will continue to overwork causing the head and neck to be out of alignment during most exercises. Spinal extension exercises such as breast stroke or swan dive are classic examples, where most people who have tight upper traps tend to look up as they lift their head, and so the neck is misaligned with the rest of the spine. In this example, the upper trap fibres are very shortened, the cervical spine (neck) has a sharp angle in the curve around C1-C4, compressing that region of the neck. Often, even the shoulders will be pulled closer to the ears if the individual tends to 'work hard'. Ideally, when an individual performs an extension exercise, the neck creates a long smooth curve which follows the curvature in the thoracic spine as the body moves into extension from a prone resting position. The primary extensor for these exercises are the deep paraspinals, particularly those covering the thoracic region such as longissimus thoracis, semispinalis thoracis and spinalis thoracis to name a few. The cervical (neck) and lumbar (small of back) extensors should take on as little work as possible. The cervical extensors will not fire as much if you don't look up while performing the exercise, and the lumbar extensors will not overwork so long as the abdominals are fully recruited before lifting the upper body into extension, and continue to work for the duration of the exercise. In peforming your Pilates exercises in this manner, the spinal extensors eventually become balanced in both strength and flexibility.

The last issue to discuss when considering ideal neck alignment during the Pilates workout is the scapula (shoulder blade). Many of the same muscles that move the head also move the shoulder blades. In order to keep the neck lengthened into a smooth curve during extension exercises, it is important to stabilize the shoulder blades. That means that when you recruit the abs to prepare for lifting the upper body off the mat (or box if you are on the reformer), you should also recruit the latissimus dorsi and lower trapezius fibres. These muscles will pull the shoulder blade down towards the pelvis and 'anchor' them in place as you lift the upper body. Consequently, the muscles that connect the neck and shoulder will lengthen rather than shorten and the cervical spine will not be compressed during the extension exercise. Furthermore, with time and consistent practice, the upper traps and lower traps will also come into balance with respect to strength and flexibility, and many of the pain issues associated with the aforementioned muscular imbalances will be considerably reduced, if not disappear altogether.