What causes tightness around the neck after a work out?
Patient: I play tennis for exercise..after about 10 to 15 minutes of warmup hitting groundstrokes I have started having a tightness all around my neck and upper bronchial area, and breathing becomes difficult...particularly if strenuous effort is required to hit the ball. After 10 minutes or so I seem to work through the worst of it. I have had surgery twice for ruptured discs in my neck at age 39 and 40, my neck is always tight and I do exercises to loosen it up. I have a little trouble occasionally swallowing during meals, particularly grainy foods. I also had asthma from about 5 years old till I was 17 which may play into the breathing issues. I am now 62 years old. Your thoughts would be appreciated. Doctor: Hello,  As you had issues with the neck and surgery was performed I think any strenuous shot played by you using the muscles of the neck and shoulder girdle gives a direct pull to the nerve root leading to tightness which is not a good thing to hear as it may go on to damage it more and more. You need to be careful with it.   Coming to your breathing issue, as you are asthmatic there are possibilities of you to forget doing breathing exercise which is most important in asthmatic cases. As some time in their life asthma cases do develop asthmatic attack and that can be a painful situation. Also please have a self assessment or ask someone to notice you, most of the times your breathing pattern will be from mouth to mouth. inspiration also through mouth and expiration too. In this case, the ability of the alveolar tissue to function can be reduced and may lead to additional symptoms which are not expected by asthmatic patients.  Tennis is an aerobic game. it demands lot of energy. Since you are asthmatic the overall functional ability of the lung to cope up with this becomes less. Its always good to undergo a good pulmonary rehabilitation so the overall functional ability of the lungs improve.   Also, will recommend you yo buy a respirator which is a small machine and can be used by asthmatic patients to assess their FEV1 values from time to time to assess the ability of their lung tissue.  Please take a piece of advice from the Surgeon who operated you for the neck disc, before indulging in the sports. As the pull of the shot is directly hitting the nerve root to get trouble and muscles are trying to get stiff to avoid any major injuries to occur.  In my practice of 12 years, I have seen both cases with discectomy and asthma and have responded well to physical therapy and precautions on when necessary to be followed.  Hope I have answered your query. Let me know if I can assist you further.  Regards, Jay Indravadan Patel, Physical Therapist or Physiotherapist