Rhomboid spasm (neck stiffness)

[Patrick]

I've had godawful neck stiffness that comes on either with activity or from waking up funny for about a decade, each time it lasts about a week and I couldn't count on anything to help it. I finally sussed out that it was due to chronic rhomboid spasm -- literally with a copy of Gray's Anatomy. After I figured it out and got it treated (most unpleasant massage I was ecstatic to pay for) I read that one aggrivating factor was overhead motions with the hands. This really resonates with me as I've felt it set in while I was doing OH pressing as well as during basketball and volleyball games. Anyhow, I was wondering if you'd come across this in your teaching of the press or training Oly lifters. If so, do you have any wisdom to pass on in terms of preventing the incidences of rhomboid spasm?

Also, if anyone reading this has frequent neck stiffness, if you go to a chiro or massage therapist, mention the possibility of rhomboid spasm and save yourself 10 years of cricked necks. /end PSA

[Mark Rippetoe]

I hate to tell you this, but your rhomboid doesn't just go into spasm spontaneously, and it certainly doesn't extend up your neck - look at the drawing again. Your pain is better characterized as extending from the upper neck down to about T6 along one side of your spine, right? If this is the case, it is classic C7 sign, and there is probably something chronic wrong at that level. This is why certain movements cause problems that last a week or so; anything that tweaks the primary lesion will do this. For me it was a bone spur that required a fusion of C6-7, and once I had it done it has been pain-free for the past 10 years.