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Research Quest on neck pain relief

Research Quest on neck pain relief
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2020 paper by Rodríguez-Sanz et al.:


In the beginning of 2020, something strange happened to me.

Yes, it was the dreaded C word.

Cervical.

We had spent New Year's Eve in Abu Dhabi and had a full day planned to celebrate the new year.

But when I woke up that morning, I could barely move my neck. I had zero degrees of cervical flexion, extension or rotation.

It was like a frozen shoulder, but for my neck.

I somehow survived Yas Island, Ferrari Park and Warner Bros World without being able to look left or right. I had to resort to doing awkward little shuffles as if I was a cartoon character.

I remembered that story about having Weird Frozen Neck Syndrome ™ because I’ve been reading up on an interesting protocol for treating chronic neck pain.

2020 study by Rodríguez-Sanz and colleagues:


Researchers took 58 patients and taught them how to contract their deep neck flexors by instructing them to “gently nod their head as though they are saying yes”.

They also used the help of Stabilizer Pressure Biofeedback.



A) They start with a bilateral contraction while lying down



  • B) This progressed to a bilateral contraction while standing up


  • C) Then a unilateral contraction with cervical inclination


  • D) Finally, a unilateral contraction with cervical rotation


Once patients had mastered progression D, they could progress to Phase Two:


These progressions were:​


  • Supine

  • Quadruped

  • Against gravity

  • Quadruped with external resistance



Each exercise was done for 2 rounds of 10 contractions, with each contraction being held for 10 seconds.


Jull and colleagues created this protocol way back in 2002 to treat patients with chronic headaches but since then it has become a popular protocol for treating a bunch of different neck-related issues.



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