With roughly 80% of jobs being sedentary, neck pain is a growing occupational hazard. Is bad posture solely to blame?
Texas A&M researchers found that while poor neck and head postures are the primary determinants of neck pain, body mass index, age and time of day also influence the neck’s ability to perform sustained or repeated movements.
“Neck pain is one of the leading and fastest-growing causes of disability in the world,” said Dr. Xudong Zhang. “Our study has pointed to a combination of work and personal factors that strongly influence the strength and endurance of the neck over time.”
Zhang says a quantitative study has been lacking on how personal factors like sex, weight and age can affect neck strength and endurance.
He and his team recruited 40 adults with no previous neck-related issues to perform controlled, “sustained-till exhaustion” head-neck exertions in a laboratory setting.
“It is intuitive to think that over the course of the day, our necks get more tired since we use it more,” said Zhang. “But roughly half of our participants were tested in the morning and the remaining in the afternoon. Some of the participants had day jobs and some worked the night shift. We consistently found the time-of-day effect on neck endurance.”
FEATURED RESEARCHER