EUGENIZATION.

If you read the Harvard Women’s Health Watch, then chances are you’ve already caught wind of a study published in the January 2008 issue of the journal Arthritis Care and Research.  This small study compared the effectiveness of strength training and general fitness training on reducing chronic work-related neck pain.

Result: The group who participated in “general fitness training” (defined by the researchers as riding a bike 20 mins 3x a week) saw no decrease in pain.  The group who strength trained experienced a 75% decrease in pain symptoms both during the training period and 10 weeks post (during which no workouts were performed).

There are some points that need to be addressed:

• The group size was small (48 participants) and was comprised exclusively of women. This limits the study’s applicability across all populations.
• The strength-trained group performed: dumbbell shrug, one-arm row, upright row, reverse fly, and lateral raise.  While these exercises do meaningfully engage the neck/shoulder muscles, one can’t help but wonder how the results might have been had the participants engaged in more direct neck work (say, manually-resisted neck flexion or extension).
• The participants suffered from overuse pain in the trapezius, likely a result of work-related factors.  This means that the study findings may not apply to those looking for relief from a more acute neck trauma; say, a blow to the head (of course, if you ask me, I’d wager that it would).

Strength training isn’t some sort of miracle cure-all, but it does help in relieving chronic muscle pain.