I work up this morning with muscle soreness in my lower neck, upper trapezius area. The typical kind of “I must have slept on it wrong” sort of deal. But what is the actual injury here? Was the muscle stretched for a long period of time or was there a lowering of blood flow like when your arm falls asleep or what? Any kinesiologists here?
I can feel the exact spot where the pain is coming from when I press it with my fingers so I know it is a muscle pain and not something with my spine. I doesn’t feel deep enough to be part of the spinal muscles and it’s off to the side somewhat.
I’m curious but I’m also wondering because today is a workout day for me and I’m not sure of I should baby this thing or try to work through it. Sometimes working out lightly helps strained muscles feel better.
You’ve got your answer already. You slept in a weird position and the muscle got strained. If you’ve ever dozed off while sitting up, you know that your muscles can work even if you aren’t awake. If they didn’t, you would flump to the floor as soon as you lost consciousness. It’s possible that, in your sleep, you moved into a position where that muscle had to work in order to keep you comfortable and asleep. Eventually, the muscle kept working past its fatigue point and got strained, at which point you were probably irritated enough to change positions even if you didn’t wake up all the way.
If I understand correctly, your limb “falls asleep” because you’ve pinched the nerve, not because blood flow was restricted. Restricted blood flow = necrosys. The seat on my exercise bike is just weird enough that it gradually pinches my cyatic nerve and makes my foot fall asleep. I can keep biking because the blood flow is okay and there is enough nerve function in my upper leg for me to place my foot where it needs to go.
Your injury is called “tortiocolis”, and is caused by inflammation in the sternocleidomastoid muscle. This usually settles down after a couple days of anti-inflammatories and/or muscle relaxants, and you do need to get it checked out if it does not (as it can also be caused by infection, eye strain and serious problems).
A light workout is okay, but probably better to do a leg day today.
On second thought, if “leg day” means lots of squats and deadlifts, as my leg days do, maybe better to work the abs and arms and eschew chest/neck/heavy leg work.