Stiff necked

I think the title of this post is a funny phrase. At physical therapy yesterday I learned I don’t have a stiff neck though. Well, I do. It’s stiff in the morning when I wake up, real stiff. It’s okay around the middle of the day, and by the end of the day I just wish I could take my head off and put it somewhere because it is too heavy. Yesterday though, I learned part of why.

The average head is 10-12 pounds, or about 10% of your body. The average neck can exert 20-30 pounds of force pulling forward and backwards. All of that was new knowledge for me. Yesterday the physical therapist checked the strength of my neck. Pulling back I was able to get about 10 pounds. Pulling forward, only 3. No wonder it often feels like my head is too heavy to hold up.