# stiff/sore/uncomfortable feeling in traps after overhead presses?



## Stewart14 (Jan 24, 2010)

has this happened to anyone else?  i went back to standing dumbbell pressing, and the past two sessions, my neck/trap area has been almost unbearably uncomfortable the night of the training and into the next day.

I know it's the overhead work since it's the only thing I've changed in my lifting recently.  it gets un bearable to the point of having to lay down on my back to make it feel somewhat better.  sitting on my laptop typing this is killing the area.

is overhead work supposed to have such an effect on the trap area?  I know when I was doing seated overhead presses I did not get this feeling, only on standing dumbbell presses.


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## Gazhole (Jan 25, 2010)

I do get this from time to time, but im at a loss as to what causes it, let alone why it only happens on seemingly random occasions.

Do your traps feel tight, or just sore?

Have you tried just doing some comprehensive stretching of the back muscles, or some foam rolling or something?


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## Stewart14 (Jan 25, 2010)

Gazhole said:


> I do get this from time to time, but im at a loss as to what causes it, let alone why it only happens on seemingly random occasions.
> 
> Do your traps feel tight, or just sore?
> 
> Have you tried just doing some comprehensive stretching of the back muscles, or some foam rolling or something?


 
Sore is probably not the right word to describe it.  I would say tight and/or uncomfortable better describes it.  It's not a typical sore muscle type thing.  I actually find that the movement of an upright row that I do with my arms makes it feel better, and also a shrugging movement makes it feel better as well.


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## PushAndPull (Jan 25, 2010)

Been watching this thread and hoping someone knew what exactly caused this, since i've also got this on occasion. The pain I get feels similiar to when I did push ups with my head up. Of course that was an easy fix. I've tried keeping my head strait and my neck as relaxed as possible when doing shoulder press, and I do think this is the solution, it hasn't happened in awhile, but that doesn't mean much since it didn't happen everytime.


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## Gazhole (Jan 25, 2010)

Is it localised to any one area? My problem is usually a trigger point and can be pinpointed. Or is it the whole muscle that hurts?

The traps seem like a problem area.


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## Stewart14 (Jan 25, 2010)

for me, it seems like the whole trap area is what is bothersome.  Now that I think about it, it only seems to occur when I do a neutral grip dumbbell press, probably because I tend to bring the dumbbells more in line with my body than I can do with a barbell, which is mostly in front of me.  I wouldn't call it a behind the neck press (which btw when I did those in the past produced the same discomfort), but it might be very close.

OK, so it seems if I bring the weight back further to *theoretically* involve more overall shoulder as opposed to front delt, I get massive trap discomfort, and if I use a barbell, it hits my anterior delts too much for my liking, so is this a case where I should probably just not do this exercise?

Do you Gaz, or anyone else have any pointers on how to do overhead work without using too much trap muscle, cause that seems to be my problem here.


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## PushAndPull (Jan 25, 2010)

Gazhole said:


> Is it localised to any one area? My problem is usually a trigger point and can be pinpointed. Or is it the whole muscle that hurts?
> 
> The traps seem like a problem area.



Definitely seems to be the neck for me. Pain goes from back of the skull down the spine a little. I use icy hot, heating pad, ibuprofen, ect... it all seems to help. Luckily, it hasn't reoccured in a few months.


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