Schneck pain is not a term I coined, I grabbed it from other Physical Therapists I know. It refers to the space between your shoulder and neck and is actually your upper trap muscle. Many people have had pain or discomfort there during their lifetime that is why I want to talk about it. This blog post will help you understand where the pain is coming from and how to manage your schneck pain.
Why Does Schneck Pain Happen?
I find that it happens for two major reasons:
1. The first reason is stress.
When you are stressed out, your brain is more sensitive to the signals coming from our body. So, it ends up putting this output of pain in the schneck area.
2. The second possible factor is your posture.
This does not mean having poor posture causes the schneck pain. When you are sitting for a long time and stressed, your shoulders tend to shrug up towards your ears so the upper trap muscle becomes overactive. Whenever a muscle is overactive, it can start to get sore or more painful.
For example, imagine that you are carrying 20 pounds of groceries home and you have to walk a mile. You are holding your elbows at 90 degrees and holding the grocery bags. By the time you get home, your biceps may be sore and be a little shaky. The same thing happens when you are sitting, stressed out, and your shoulders are up towards your ears. Your upper trap muscle becomes overactive so all of a sudden it becomes sore and painful.
Schneck Pain During Activities
When you overuse your upper trap muscle, that’s another time you can experience schneck pain.
The trapezius muscle is a fairly large muscle. It has upper, the middle, and the lower fibers that cover from your neck to shoulder to middle of your back. So when your shoulder blade muscles become fatigued, the upper trap muscle can become overactive to compensate for that fatigue.
I see this a lot when I am teaching yoga. Chaturanga in particular is a pose where the shoulder muscles become fatigued. This pose is performed repetitively throughout power yoga classes. When fatigue sets in, the shoulders sneak up the ears and the upper trap muscle becomes overactive to compensate for the fatigue of the other shoulder muscles.
How Do We Not Feel The Schneck Pain?
1. Breathing.
Taking time to take some deep breaths helps to decrease your stress levels. This in turn will help your brain not to be too sensitive to the inputs that are coming in from the upper trap muscle. When we calm our nervous system down, we are less likely to experience pain.
2. Monitor your Posture particularly when you are sitting.
If you have been sitting for a long time and you are starting to feel soreness in your schneck area, that is your body’s way of telling you to please get up and move. Once you get up and move, do some shoulder rolls so the upper trap can relax and you can reset your posture.
3. Modify your workouts when you are getting fatigued.
Like what I said earlier, in chaturanga, if you notice that your shoulders are creeping up to your ears, that is your sign to modify. There are three main ways to modify chaturanga in yoga class. First, you drop your knees to the ground so there’s not too much load on my shoulders. Another is to completely skip the chaturanga. Lastly, you can perform chaturanga at the wall or elevate yourself using a bench or some blocks. This will continue to engage your muscles, and with less load, your muscles will not fatigue as quickly.
4. Strengthen your scapular muscles.
This pertains to the muscles between your shoulder blades. When you strengthen your scapular muscles through different activities, it will take the load off of the upper trap muscle. And when this happens, the upper trap muscle will not come in too often to compensate for the fatigue.
5. Throwing some heat on the upper trap muscle.
By throwing heat there, it causes more blood flow to the area and heat also helps the body to relax. So, this will help the upper trap muscle to be not so activated. As the muscle relaxes, you will not feel that pain so much.
If you already tried all of these but nothing works, check in with a physical therapist. They will assess what is happening to your body and help you modify and strengthen in ways so you do not continue to have this schneck pain.