Battling Belayer’s Neck
When discussing pain and injuries from climbing, generally those that occur on the wall are what come to mind. However, if you ask someone an hour or two into belaying, they could easily name another.
Belayer’s neck can be a real pain in the n—just kidding, we won’t do it. But those of us who are into climbing know that reaching the top feels great from up high on the wall, while not as comfortable watching from below. You feel that pain, tenderness, and stiffness creeping into the back of your neck, and you just know it’s going to be uncomfortable looking up or turning your head for a while. Many of us have been in the position of wishing our friend would make his way up the wall just a little bit faster so that our neck could get some much-needed relief.
So what’s actually behind that pain and stiffness?
When your neck isn’t centered over your shoulders, gravity does its thing and the muscles around your neck fire like crazy to support your head. Over time, this can lead to strained muscles in the back of your neck, including the upper traps, levator scapulae, and erector spinae. These muscles get strong, but shortened, stiff, and often painful.
At the same time, the flexor muscles in the front of your neck get weak and elongated from being stretched for a long time, causing an imbalance in the muscles that surround and support your neck. In addition, the facet joints in your spine can be affected.
These joints between the vertebrae in your spine have a nice space between them when your head and neck are upright in a neutral position. When you look down at your belay device, that space increases. And when you extend your neck to look up, that space decreases, compressing the joints. After being compressed for prolonged periods, these joints can start to get irritated and inflamed, sending pain signals to your brain. Some people may get some symptoms into their arms as well.
As we age, it’s normal for the spaces between our vertebrae to get a little smaller. Since the nerves to our upper body exit through these spaces in our neck, when we spend a lot of time in extension (such as while belaying or even during everyday life if our muscles get tight enough), they can get irritated. This is even more likely if we have some inflammation in the facet joints. It’s the irritated nerves that can cause some pain, tingling, or numbness into our shoulders or arms.
While the immediate pain and stiffness usually subside, in the short term belayer’s neck can lead to unsafe belaying. In the longer term, it can lead to headaches and migraines, both from increased muscle tension and facet joint inflammation. Imbalanced muscles and compressed facet joints can also lead to chronic pain in the neck, shoulders, and upper back.
Luckily, there are a few simple ways you can battle belayer’s neck.
Belay glasses
These glasses use a mirror prism to change the angle of your vision by 90 degrees. Although they look goofy, they allow you to watch your climber while looking forward with a neutral neck. That means you won’t be tempted to look down to stretch your neck while your climber is still on the wall.
If you decide to give these a go, beware that they can cause some dizziness initially since our eyes aren’t used to looking through prisms—especially if they’re cheaper ones, which often have some level of distortion.
Make sure you try them out for a while when you’re not belaying so you get used to the view and how you need to move your eyes to see another direction. You don’t want to be testing the waters for the first time when you have your friend’s safety in your hands. In addition, some pairs that are bulkier block your peripheral vision, so you won’t be able to see obstacles around you like rocks if you’re outside or the edge of a mat if you’re in a climbing gym. Try to get some that allow for more peripheral vision so that you can see the rope you’re holding when needed, as well as your surroundings.
Change your body positioning while belaying
When belaying, we tend to stand straight up with our hips jutted forward, relaxing as many muscles as we can. But this positioning requires you to extend your neck further back to watch your climber. Instead, try taking a staggered stance. Then lean onto your back leg with your knee bent a little bit. Or turn to the side, take a step out with a bent knee, and lean into that outside leg. These positions demand a little more use of your legs while belaying—specifically your quads—but they will allow you to tilt your whole body more so that you don’t need to crane your neck as much to see the wall above you.
Take breaks and don’t push it
Just as you’d take time to rest and stretch between climbs for the sake of your forearms, you should do the same for belaying. The muscles in the back of your neck are required to do some pretty intense work for a long duration while belaying, and they need a break from being in that jammed position. Move your neck around in different directions—motion is lotion. And give the muscles in the back of your neck a couple of good stretches. While your climbing buddies may be rearing to get on the wall again, it’s important not to push through it. The more tired and strained those muscles get, the more likely you are to look down while belaying in order to relieve the strain. Then you’re not looking at your climber and could miss a slip or fall. So see if someone else is available to belay, or ask them to hop on one of the auto belays if they just can’t wait.
Balance out your neck muscles
As we mentioned above, over time, belaying can lead to strong tight muscles in the back of your neck and weakened muscles in the front. Strengthening those in the front and stretching those in the back will allow all of the muscles around your neck to support your head in a more balanced and efficient way, both while belaying and during everyday life. It will decrease your chances of chronic injury and pain over the long haul. Chin tucks are a great exercise for strengthening those deep neck flexor muscles. While sitting or standing, gently pull your head back while looking straight ahead. Imagine trying to create a double chin rather than bending to look down at the floor. Hold this position for 10 seconds, then relax and repeat for a total of 10 repetitions. If you do these occasionally throughout the day, and definitely between belays, your neck will thank you.
Work on your overall posture
The posture most of us find ourselves in due to long hours at a computer is that with rounded shoulders, a rounded upper back, and a head jutted forward. Unfortunately, climbing often leads to tightened pecs and lats. These limit the mobility of your shoulders and upper back, reinforcing that posture. That means that your neck has to do even more of the work to look up when belaying because your upper back can’t help as much as it should. Releasing these muscles and gaining more mobility in your upper back and chest can take some of the load off of your neck—literally and figuratively.
Feel free to reach out to FX and make an appointment with one of our physical therapists for more guidance so that belaying doesn’t become a more permanent pain in the neck—sorry, we did go there after all.
