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The Ultimate Guide to Cycling Neck Pain: Causes and Solutions

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Cycling neck pain is one of those nagging issues that can really hinder the other aspects of your life. The muscles in your neck are constantly supporting your breathing, interacting with your shoulders, holding up your head, and countless other important functions liable to irritate any pain, soreness, or injury that could be developing or already present from cycling. 

The reality of our sport means that the neck is going to have to sit in some uncomfortable positions from time to time. In fact, up to 60% of cyclists experience some sort of discomfort in this area. Whether our necks are prepared to go into those positions, how we can prepare them, and what we can do to optimize our necks on the bike will be the focus of this article. 

Neck pain from cycling doesn’t have to slow you down, and we’re here to help you fix it once and for all.

neck pain

(Image credit: SciePro/Adobe Stock)

Causes of Cycling Neck Pain

Does cycling cause neck pain? The short answer is yes, but the reasons behind it can be complicated. We have to approach the topic of cycling neck pain through a wide-angle lens, because it’s seldom a single factor causing the problem. 

Forward Head Posture (FHP)

FHP is an epidemic not just amongst cyclists but the general populace as a whole. The term is referring to the forward position of the cranium (head) relative to the shoulders and spine. Also commonly called text neck, scholar’s neck, or computer neck posture because of its correlation and likelihood of development after prolonged texting, reading, or spending time on a computer.

What many people don’t realize is that their head, on average, weighs 10-12 pounds, and that this weight gets amplified tremendously as the head moves/tilts forward from the midline. For every inch of FHP, it adds roughly 10 pounds to the head. As you can see in the below picture, this can equate to the neck having to support 60+ pounds of sustained pressure throughout the day.


(Image credit: New York Spine Surgery & Rehabilitation Medicine)

The big ropes you see on the sides of a person’s neck are called your sternocleidomastoid muscles. These muscles get overdeveloped and tight as a result of FHP, and can also flatten the natural backwards curve in your cervical spine. These conditions strain the neck, reduce blood flow to the brain, and weaken the extensors of the neck resulting in reduced stability. 

Cycling naturally puts us in positions of FHP, and trains us to hold those positions for long periods of time. Leaning over the handlebars causes the head to protrude forward and the neck to crane back in order to keep our eyes level with the horizon (righting reflex). Because these positions are unavoidable, we have to find ways to correct them in other parts of our training.

cycling neck pain

Notice the position of the head and neck of this cyclist; protruding forward, craned back. (Image credit: Artem Varnitsin/Adobe Stock)

Improper Breathing

Breathing and neck pain are intimately connected. Optimal inhalation is accounted for primarily by the diaphragm, a large, thin sheet of muscle that separates the chest cavity from the abdominal cavity. When contracted, its dome shape flattens out to pull air into the lungs and create room for them to expand. If it’s stiff or not functioning properly, however, other muscles get overloaded.

A muscle group in this category is known as the scalenes. They work as accessory respiratory muscles to help you inhale by lifting the first two ribs. When a person breathes through their chest as opposed to their diaphragm, these muscles get overworked and start to become irritated as a result. Chronic neck pain is often improved by addressing these kinds of faulty patterns.


The three muscles of the scalene group; anterior, medial, posterior. Notice the insertions on ribs one and two. (Image credit: Mikael Häggström/Public Domain)

Because cycling is a cardiovascular intensive sport, coupled with the positions we find ourselves in while riding, make it probable that we will develop a faulty breathing pattern that overworks the neck. Being folded over on the bike can discourage movement of the diaphragm and push our breath up into the chest, where we are only able to inhale ⅓ of the oxygen we could otherwise.

Opening up the breath through breathing re-education exercises, fixing the posture, and corrective stretching are all tools we can use to help combat this issue. By now you’re probably starting to see the links between these causes and how they all can contribute to cycling neck pain.

Upper Cross Syndrome (UCS)

Upper cross syndrome (UCS) is a postural imbalance that occurs as a result of prolonged sitting or standing in a forward head and rounded shoulder posture. It is characterized by tightness in the upper trapezius, levator scapulae, and pectoralis major muscles, as well as weakness in the deep cervical flexors, lower trapezius, and serratus anterior.

upper cross syndrome (UCS)

(Image credit: art4stock/Adobe Stock)

Cycling requires a sustained forward head and rounded shoulder posture, which can exacerbate UCS. The tightness in the upper trapezius, levator scapulae, and pectoralis major muscles can cause increased tension and compression in the cervical spine, as well as inhibit your breathing, which all further contribute to the problem.

Additionally, weakness in the deep cervical flexors, serratus anterior, and lower trapezius muscles can lead to decreased stabilization of the cervical spine. This can be especially problematic for cyclists who spend prolonged periods in a forward head position, as the neck muscles are required to maintain stability and support the weight of the head.

Poor Bike Fit

Having an improperly fitted bike is going to exacerbate all of the above causes of neck pain in cyclists. Symptoms of a poor bike fit include:

  • Handlebars too low or having to reach too far forward
    • Rounds the back/shoulders and closes the chest, encourages forward head posture
  • Arms locked out in extension
    • Having a soft bend in the elbows allows force from the handlebars to be cushioned while riding, otherwise reverberating up into the neck
  • Saddle tipped too far forward
    • This increases weight bearing load on the arms and increases the likelihood of the previous point occurring
  • Poor adjustment of helmet and/or eyeglasses
    • A helmet too low on the head will cause a cyclist to crane their neck excessively, the same problem will occur with eyeglasses sitting too low on the nose

Solutions for Cycling Neck Pain

The causes of neck pain in cyclists are often co-contributing to one another, sometimes making it difficult to pinpoint the exact root of the problem. However, there are some common preventative/corrective measures we can take to help alleviate the above causes and more by following the advice below.

Strengthen the Upper Back & Neck Extensors

To combat forward head posture and upper cross syndrome that develops as a result of cycling (and other modern activities like office work and driving), we can do exercises in our supplemental training to strengthen the muscles that get weak and hyperactive as a result of improper positioning/loading. 

Here are two exercises to help address this:

Prone Cobra/Cobra Hold

Instructions:

  1. Lying prone on your mat, pull your shoulder blades down and together so your arms are in a position like our coach Alisha’s (pictured above)
  2. From here, lift your chest as high as possible off the ground
  3. Squeeze the shoulder blades together, flatten and extend the mid back, and contract the glutes and lower back muscles as well
  4. Keep your neck in a neutral position by pulling it backwards (think of making a double chin)
  5. Hold this position for 30 seconds
  6. Rest for 30 seconds
  7. Repeat three times

This exercise works the mid/upper back, as well as the extensors of the neck in a static hold, which is important for postural endurance. Increased strength in these areas has multiple benefits, including a significantly reduced risk of concussions.

Wall Lean

Instructions:

  1. Start with your feet about one foot away from the wall
  2. Place a towel behind your head and lean into it, keeping the body in a stiff, neutral position (straight line)
  3. Support yourself with your neck in this position, if it is too easy, you can place your feet farther away from the wall
  4. Hold for 30 seconds
  5. Rest for 30 seconds
  6. Repeat three times

The wall lean is a simple exercise to work the neck extensors, which get weak if the head is constantly protruding forward. Strengthening these muscles will help correct forward head posture and pull the head back into better alignment.

Stretch the Sternocleidomastoid, Shoulder & Chest

It is important to couple the following stretches with the above strengthening exercises. These muscles are getting tight and causing neck pain because they’re working hard to try and support us in unnatural positions on the bike. If we stretch them without providing support through corrective strengthening we will only further our risk of pain and injury. 

Try these three stretches to counter the muscle tightness that develops from cycling and contributes to neck pain in cyclists:

Lateral Neck Stretch

Instructions:

  1. Stand in a relaxed and comfortable position
  2. Tilt your head gently to one side, make sure to avoid tilting forward or backward
  3. Rest your hand on the top side of your head
  4. Don’t pull, but let the weight of your hand gently stretch your neck to the side
  5. Hold for 15-30 seconds
  6. Repeat on other side

Cyclists with neck pain will help release a likely hyperactive sternocleidomastoid muscle by performing this stretch. Coupled with the neck and upper back exercises listed above, you’ll be offering multiple modes of relief to the painful areas.

Dynamic Shoulder Rolls

Instructions:

  1. Stand with your shoulders relaxed
  2. Roll your shoulders up high towards your ears, then back (squeezing your shoulder blades together), and finally back down and pulling away from your ears
  3. Complete these circles continuously for 30 seconds
  4. Reverse the motion, rolling your shoulders forward
  5. Repeat for another 30 seconds

This simple exercise helps loosen up and mobilize your shoulder blade and trapezius muscle. The upper trapezius and levator scapulae muscles often get tight as a result of cycling. This movement helps loosen them and is great to do pre/post ride.

Single Arm Chest Stretch w/Wall

Instructions:

  1. Start facing the wall with your arm straight out to the side (shoulder height), palm against the wall
  2. Staying close to the wall, slowly rotate away from your arm until you feel a stretch in the chest and front of the shoulder
  3. Hold here for 30 seconds
  4. Switch to the other arm and repeat

Tight chest and shoulder muscles are common with faulty breathing patterns that often develop as a result of cycling. By opening up these tissues we also open up our lung capacity so that the muscles in our neck don’t have to work so hard as we inhale. 

Professional Bike Fitting/ AI Bike Fitting

To avoid exacerbating all of the aforementioned causes of neck pain in cyclists, it’s recommended that you find a reputable local bike fitter to help optimize the positioning on your bike to your unique body and proportions.

Another option is to use an at home bike fitting app like MyVeloFit. This app utilizes the power of AI to analyze your bike fit and make recommendations on how to correctly adjust different components of the bike and ensure your joint angles fall into the optimal range.

The money and time you spend on a bike fit, whether it’s at home or in person, will most certainly be returned in the form of saved physiotherapy, chiropractic, and massage therapy appointments long-term.

Prevent Cycling Neck Pain & Become A Stronger Cyclist!

The above solutions were borrowed from our programming over at Dynamic Cyclist, a fully online and interactive training platform designed for the health and well-being of people in our sport. We address mobility, strength training, injury prevention and more in routines that are fun to follow-along with! Try it out FREE for 7-days by clicking here!

Here Are 5 Tips To Correct Your Cycling Posture

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As cyclists, we want to be economical and good cycling posture plays a significant role in doing this. Because of the countless hours we end up sitting on our bikes, it would be wise to figure out how best we can achieve efficiency in order to avoid damage to our bodies and improve overall cycling performance.

The question here is: How can we improve cycling posture? 

To become better at something, you need to become more efficient. The truth(s) we are actually seeking is how do we get better on the bike? How do we avoid overuse injuries? And how do we get more for less while cycling? 


torwaiphoto/Adobe Stock

A great question can sometimes be answered with an equation – and one for efficiency already exists. Borrowed from physics, it reads as follows

Efficiency = Output/Input

In cycling terms: Greater output (cycling performance) divided by lesser input (work done on the bike & wind resistance) will equal more efficient cycling.

One way to lessen the input is by improving posture.

Cycling Posture

After you’ve had a professional bike fit done to reduce hot spots and accommodate your unique proportions, the next thing to address will be your posture. The reason is because using the wrong postures at the wrong times (or just doing them poorly) while riding can make you a far less efficient cyclist…

Increased wind resistance, bleeding force, overloaded joints and overworked muscles are just some of the damage we do to ourselves and our biking when posture gets compromised. You end up putting in more work (higher input) for less reward (lower output), opposite of the desired variables in our formula above.

Today we want to give you 5 tips to improve your cycling posture so you not only feel better on the bike, but also increase your longevity, lower your injury risk, breathe better and enjoy yourself more – even on tough rides. 

#1. Adjust Your Hand Position

There are three hand positions that you’re going to use throughout your ride, and it’s important you use the right one at the right time. They each have significant influence over how the rest of your body will be positioned, all with their own advantages, disadvantages and specific use:

cycling posture

Tops

You should be using your tops when you’re at the front of the group, riding alone or climbing a hill. This allows you to be in a more upright position where you can take in deeper breaths, have a better view of the road, pedal hard and be overall more comfortable on the bike.

Hoods

This is where you’ll be the majority of the time, think of it as a maintenance position for when you’re cruising on flat terrain and maintaining a steady cadence. This is a good position to relax into and conserve energy with easy access to your shifters or brakes should you need them.

Drops

Your most aggressive position and ideal for descending down hills as it lowers your center of gravity. You’ll naturally be able to shift your weight back and literally “drop” into a more aerodynamic position; increased output (speed/distance) and lowered input (pedaling/wind).

#2. Remember To Breathe

Not getting enough oxygen in is going to force your body to compensate through your posture. You’ll start to crane your neck, your breathing will get erratic and exaggerated, your lower back will arch, and basically everything will fall apart. Breathing is not something you can mess with on a human being without some sort of consequence.

There’s a couple of ways to address this, number one is to improve your strength and conditioning so that the stimulus of cycling isn’t so stressful on your body. The better shape you’re in, the more calm you’ll be on the bike. You can learn to modulate when your body breathes deeply for recovery and when it should really push for a sprint or hill climb. 

Number two, maintain good posture even when you’re at the limits of your fitness. “Fake it until you make it”, in a sense. The reason is because you want to send the signal to your brain that you’re in control. Try your best to harmonize yourself with the stress, and you’ll recover faster when you hit flat ground or return to a more steady pedal rate. Keep it together!

#3. Engage Your Core

Maintaining some degree of stiffness in your core is going to help support your back (keeping it from collapsing) and give your legs something solid to push off of. The lower extremity is connected to your torso through the hip flexors, and pushes/pulls on the pedals in concert with the contraction of your core muscles in the front and back of your body.

Especially as you drop into a more folded position, it’s important to keep your tail slightly tucked (pelvis rotated back) to keep your core engaged. This will increase the power output from your legs, and also disperse the load more evenly throughout your body. 

Remember that any break in the kinetic chain (combined muscle activity to perform a movement) will cause force to bleed out and be wasted. For many people, this is the core, and it presents itself as an arched lower back on the bike or abnormal movement patterns that don’t look or feel natural.

#4. Relax Your Body

Too much tension on the other hand, is also going to affect the way you look and move on the bike. While the goal is to produce force, pedal hard and cycle fast while riding, we also need to be able to adapt, stay loose and complete the distance we’re setting out to do. 

Put that chattering voice in your head to work by giving yourself reminders throughout the ride. Relax the shoulders and bring them down from the ears. Soften the elbows so they can act as your built-in natural shock absorbers. Unclench the jaw and relax your face. Loosen the grip and use only as much muscle as you need.

Bodybuilders know the effects of this all too well – they commonly report extreme muscle soreness and fatigue after doing a posing routine on stage. All their energy goes into those poses, but it doesn’t need to go into ours. Learn to catch yourself wasting unnecessary energy and gain it back through small reminders to relax.


Pattadis/Adobe Stock

#5. Control Your Exertion

Bursting too hard out of the blocks is a common problem among many types of athletes. In our sport, it can have some seriously negative effects on your cycling posture. If you overexert yourself too soon and use up all your reserves, you might not have the capacity to recover, and form will just slowly break down further and further as the ride goes on.

A proper warm up can really help mitigate this problem. It gives you the time to get yourself in a good headspace, go through the race or training plan in your mind, and figure out how best to approach the peaks and valleys of this session. 

If you can stay relaxed in the right places, you’ll be able to fine tune the juxtaposition between your periods of recovery and moments of intense exertion (sprint, hill climb, attack, finish). This helps maintain overall composure, resulting in better race outcomes and training results over time.

Ride Pain & Injury Free For LIFE

If you’re looking for an all-inclusive training platform available to you 24/7 for a low monthly cost – check out, Dynamic Cyclist. They offer daily stretching and strength training video routines designed specifically for cyclists. Created by industry professionals, these programs will take your cycling to the next level and help you reach your full potential. So, whether you’re a beginner or an experienced rider, Dynamic Cyclist has everything you need to improve your performance and keep riding for years to come. Experience the results for yourself. You can try it for FREE by signing up HERE!.

This Will Make You Faster On The Trails

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Mountain biking is that unique brand of our sport notoriously responsible for its abrasions, broken bones, banged up shoulders and the odd concussion from time to time. Strength training for mountain biking should prepare us for what can sometimes be a winding trail of hostility and potential danger. That doesn’t, however, mean it’s something we should avoid.

The chance to get into nature, explore new technical paths and take in the beautiful scenery are what biking outside is all about. Preparing our bodies to handle the sudden drops, body jolts, jagged turns and unorthodox terrain means we can enjoy ourselves with a built-in insurance policy that protects us from injury and improves our cycling performance as a whole.

Becoming a better, faster mountain biker is always going to be a dynamic, ever changing goal. There are so many areas we can pay attention to for a sport that shifts focus quickly depending on where we are and how we’re riding. We have some universal tips to help and a special routine excerpt from our Dynamic Cyclist training program at the bottom for you to try!

Build Your Confidence

Source: Simona

It’s one thing to preach this idea, it’s a whole other to actually go out and do it. Especially when you’re careening down a mountain at God knows what speed, with every tree and boulder just waiting to stop you dead in your tracks. Exposing yourself to those situations though is precisely the way you get better at mountain biking.

The mitigation of fear is a competitive mountain biker’s innate advantage compared to the amateur rider. They have dealt with almost every situation, and understand how to control the forces that are going to be applied to them. They know their bike and they know their body, so they’re free to let go of the brake and use it all to their advantage.

Riding on different terrain, paths and trails will help educate your mind and body to be more comfortable amidst all the chaos. High confidence has been shown to be one of the few differentiators in downhill mountain biking performance. Other factors included hand grip endurance and aerobic capacity which, if you lack, could be significant performance detractors…

Improve Hand Grip Endurance & Aerobic Capacity

Source: marchsirawit/Adobe Stock

Surprise! In case that last sentence wasn’t a clue. Imagine the feeling of losing your grip on the handlebars or gasping for air with nature’s every creation flying by you at lightning fast speeds. That doesn’t sound to us like optimal conditions for the intense concentration required under such circumstances. 

One of the best ways to get direct functional cross over from your mountain bike training to the trails is with the use of cables. As you can see above, the woman has her arms angled similarly to the position you’ll find yourself in on the bike. Cable machines can challenge the hands, forearms and shoulders to stabilize in a similar way to biking but with progressive loading.

For aerobic capacity, making sure to challenge yourself with lots of uphill riding is a surefire way to get your heart pumping. It’s important to remember too that your aerobic capacity and overall cardiovascular health are the first variables of fitness to decrease upon taking a break from physical activity. Quick to gain, quick to lose, so make sure you train it regularly!

Adjust Your Gaze

Source: yanik88/Adobe Stock

Where you look actually has a significant influence on your overall body position, and this plays an important part in getting the most out of your muscles on the bike. Our eyes have a stimulating effect on the muscles in whatever direction we look, which is built into our nervous systems to help anticipate movement in that direction

The pelvo-ocular response is a reflex that orients our pelvis and lower extremities based on where our eyes are looking. Because of the positions we find ourselves in while mountain biking, there can be a tendency to crane the neck upwards to keep our eyes level with the horizon. This is indeed necessary sometimes, but not all the time.

Tilting the chin too far up will cause our lower backs to arch as a result of this pelvo-ocular response, this in turn will stretch the core muscles and cause them to disengage, which is not something we want. It is instead better, when possible, to keep the spine and neck in a neutral position, retracting the chin and letting your gaze fall naturally in front of you for a tight, stable core.

Deadlift Position & Mountain Biking

An interesting parallel to the fitness world is deadlift positioning in the gym. It has been shown that retraction of the neck and chin into a straight, neutral position helps a person to engage the erector spinae (back) muscles and exterior obliques in their core when lifting. Transferring this activation to the bike would result in far superior force production and absorption.

Ready To Get Stronger On The Bike?

Dynamic Cyclist offers an all around training platform for cyclists of all disciplines worldwide. We have comprehensive strength training workouts, injury prevention sessions, mobility and warm up routines all available with the click of a button! 

Give it a try by following along today with our coach, Alisha. This is just one of the hundreds of videos from our library that is available for a low monthly subscription. Our goal is to make you a better, stronger cyclist who enjoys being on the bike and rides pain free. You can sign up here for a 7-day free trial and see what you think! 

Strength Training Considerations For Different Types Of Biking

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Whether you’re on the road, a velodrome or carving up mountain trails, your bike riding is going to be significantly improved with a proper strength and conditioning routine. Strength training for cycling is often overlooked because it takes you off the bike, but with a small shift in perspective we’d like to suggest it will actually pack more riding into your life over time.

Source: 24K-Production – Adobe Stock

Strength Demands of Different Rider Types

Depending on the type of bike riding you choose to participate in, the demands on your body will also change from style to style. While there’s certainly cross over amongst the three types we have categorized below, they all have distinct differences that are unique to that particular discipline.

 Mountain Biking

Source: yanik88 – Adobe Stock

Diverse terrain, varying depths, hard corners, jumps, rocks, roots and everything the outdoors has to offer are factors that every mountain biker must deal with. The movement is much more dynamic than road or track cycling, and in terms of force absorption this is most definitely the hardest type of biking on your body. 

It is well known that adult road cyclists are typically at a much higher risk for osteoporosis than other athletes. Some studies actually show their bone density to closely resemble (and in one case, even be lower than) sedentary control groups. This is not encouraging news for the cycling community.

Conversely, related research has made note of mountain biking being a possible cycling alternative that doesn’t so negatively affect a person’s bone density. Operation of a heavier bike, turbulent jolts and violent carving all translate to more load being put through your body. Strength training for mountain biking should prepare you to handle these types of forces.

Road Cycling

Source: ibravery – Adobe Stock

As mentioned above, road cyclists tend to have a lower bone mineral density compared to other athletes and even the general population. This is because the bike is supporting you while you’re riding, so even though your legs are pumping hard and your heart is beating fast, your bones are sitting there wondering what all the huff and puff is about.

Another factor to consider with road cycling is the prolonged, folded over postures you’ll often find yourself in. The hips have to work in a less than optimal range, the lower back is in a vulnerable position and the neck gets craned back (only some of the issues unfortunately). Low back problems, faulty breathing patterns and tight hips are often the result.

Strength training for cyclists should focus on correcting these postural and functional shortcomings. Introducing load through the body off the bike will help you become stronger on the bike. Not only that, a properly designed program will actually make riding more comfortable and lower your risk of injury despite the less than optimal positions you might find yourself in.

Track Cycling

Source: AboutLife – Adobe Stock

Track cycling is a unique discipline within the broader realm of our sport. There are many types of events and formats, but for the purpose of this article we want to focus on the particular differences in sprint cycling. These are races performed over short distances where maximum power and force production is required. 

Athletes who are successful in sprint cycling tend to have a higher composition of type II (fast twitch) muscle fibers. Individuals with more fast twitch fibers are capable of producing quicker movements and generating more strength in a shorter period of time (power). There is a direct correlation between muscle fiber composition and sprint cycling performance.

Different muscle fibers react to different training modalities. An explosive athlete like a sprint cyclist will likely be doing a lot of jumping and sprinting exercises. Training with heavy weights for low repetitions will also be common in order to teach their body to produce as much force as possible in as little time as possible. Long, leisurely rides will be for nothing more than recovery.

Lifting Weights For Cycling

Source: Flamingo Images – Adobe Stock

Incorporating weight lifting into your cycling training plan is a great way to make yourself stronger on the bike, balance your pedal stroke and most importantly reduce the risk of injury. The #1 goal of any athlete in the gym (unless you’re a powerlifter, olympic lifter or bodybuilder) is injury prevention, because nothing else matters if you can’t actually do your sport.

Determining how to train, what exercises to do, in what rep range and at what weight can all be tricky variables if you don’t have much experience in the gym. This is where the help of a one-on-one coach becomes valuable, as they’ll be able to provide you with the guidance necessary to ensure you’re not wasting your time doing something counterproductive. 

As we’ve already seen, the type of riding you’re doing is going to determine the bulk of your strength training routine. You might be wondering though, is there anything I can do for strength training outside the gym? Regardless of whether I’m a mountain biker, road or track cyclist? The answer is yes!

At Home Strength Training For Cyclists

Dynamic Cyclist is our fully immersive training platform that combines mobility, stretching, injury prevention and strength workouts all into one, easy to use interface. We’ve taken care of all the programming, technical work and coaching so that all you have to do is follow along!

To give you a taste of the world class instruction and workout quality we provide, we’ve included below one of our FULL BODY routines that is going to work you from head to toe. Everything at Dynamic Cyclist is designed to make you better on the bike, regardless of what discipline you most participate in.

Follow along with Alisha, Dynamic Cyclist’s certified coach!

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