Part of Neck pain
Neck stretches to avoid, and the ones to change instead
Warning signs, and when to get help
Which neck stretches should you avoid?
There is no banned list, and a page that hands you one has gone further than any source we have read. What you get instead is a short set of movements that go wrong often, each for a reason you can do something about. Most of the time what comes out is the way the stretch is being done, not the stretch.
Two groups need an answer before they read the list at all. If your neck has been operated on, fused or broken, the plan that governs you is your surgeon's rather than this page, so read who needs to ask before stretching their neck before you start or change anything here. And for a defined set of necks, cracking your own is not a question of how often at all: is it bad to crack your neck every day names them, and if you are not sure whether you are in that set, take it that you are, because nobody is worse off for leaving their neck alone. If neither of those is you, the rest of this page is written for you.
Full head circles are the exception, and the one movement worth dropping outright. Rolling the head all the way round takes the neck to the end of bending back and the end of turning at the same time. The international manual therapy framework for the neck tells clinicians that examination and treatment techniques should be used "cautiously at the end of range of cervical movement, particularly extension and rotation", and it also asks that rotational manipulations be done "in the mid-range of overall cervical rotation" (IFOMPT 2020, with its 2023 addendum). Those sentences are addressed to clinicians about their own hands, so they are not a patient prohibition and we will not inflate them into one. They are the sourced reason that the one movement combining both end ranges is not taught here.
The same document does say one thing about the neck itself. That one is not about anybody's hands. In the section on keeping away from end-range work it states that "End of range movements are known to stress the cervical arteries and potentially neural structures", and it recommends avoiding those positions even when testing how far a neck moves. That sentence is about what the position does to the tissue, so it applies whoever is moving your head, including you. What comes out of it is not a banned list but a ceiling: do not take your neck to the very end of bending back or turning, do not hold it there, and do not arrive there fast.
Pulling hard on your own head is next. It is the fault we see most across the whole set. Every neck stretch on this site is built so the hand anchors something instead of forcing something. On the levator scapulae stretch the hand on the back of the head only guides the angle. On the upper trapezius stretch the hand holds a table or a chair seat to stop that shoulder hitching up toward the ear, and the weight of your head is usually enough on its own.
To find out which of the two your hand is doing, let go of your head for a second. If it stays where it was, the hand was guiding. If it springs back up, the hand was pulling it there. Feeling nothing much is not a reason to pull either, because a stiff neck often gives you very little on the first repetition and a bit more by the fifth.
So neither stretch needs dropping. The hand's job needs to get smaller.
The scalene stretch carries its own stop rule. It adds a slight backward tip to a side bend, and the nerves that supply the arm run between the muscles it is aiming at, which is why tingling into the hand during it means something rather than nothing. If that happens, ease your head back toward the middle, and if it does not settle quickly, stop and tell your physio. Our neck pain program leaves this stretch out altogether for anyone whose arm tingles, so if it has happened more than once, take it out rather than keep testing it. Tipping the head far back is the other error here, because a slight backward tilt is all the stretch asks for.
Looking up is the half of neck flexion and extension that finds the limit, and bending forward is usually the easy half. The fault is letting the head drop back as far as it will go, or bouncing at the end of the movement. Stop at a comfortable point and move slowly. One group leaves the looking-up half out altogether rather than looking for a comfortable point in it: if you have been told the space around your spinal cord in your neck is narrowed, tipping the head back is out, and who needs to ask before stretching their neck gives the reason. Standing also puts your balance into the mix while your head moves, so do these next to a kitchen counter or a sturdy chair, and do them sitting if you have fallen in the past year, feel unsteady on your feet or get spells of dizziness.
Turning the head goes wrong in a quieter way. In neck rotation people force the end of the turn, or twist the shoulders to see further round, which makes the neck look better than it is. The twisting is easy to check: sit well back so both shoulder blades touch the backrest, then turn to look behind you, and if a blade peels away from the chair, your trunk did the turning. Forcing the end of the turn needs a line of its own. A turn is usually held, not passed through, so where you stop and wait matters more here than in a movement you move through: hold it short of your limit rather than at it.
The neck side bend collects three faults: turning the head as it tilts, hitching the shoulder up to the ear, and leaning the whole body sideways. Any of the three means you are not stretching what you think you are. The first of those is the one you cannot see yourself doing. Use your nose: it stays pointing straight ahead while your ear travels toward your shoulder, and if it swings toward the floor or the ceiling, your head has turned as well as tilted.
The chin tuck is not a stretch at all, and it fails in the other direction. People drop the chin to the chest instead of sliding the head straight back, or push back as hard as they can. It is a small backward movement with the eyes level and a light working feeling under the chin. Pushing harder does not make it a stronger version.
Last, the rule that covers everything above: keep every stretch inside a range that feels comfortable rather than pulling into pain. A pull, not pain. Holds on this site are typically 15 to 30 seconds, 2 to 3 times on each side, once or twice a day, and your physio will adjust this. Any stretch that turns into sharp neck pain, or that sends pain, numbness or tingling into your arm or hand, comes out for now.
One stop rule sits above all of them, and it is not negotiable. If a neck movement makes you dizzy, stop, sit still until it settles, and get medical advice the same day before you try again. If you faint, it does not settle within a few minutes of sitting still, or you cannot stand or walk steadily, call emergency services.
Why do neck exercises make my pain worse?
Three ordinary reasons come before assuming you have found a dangerous movement. Too much range on the first repetition is the commonest: a stiff neck often moves a little further by the fifth or sixth, so the opening repetition is not the place to find your limit. Too much effort comes next, and it is almost universal on the deep neck flexor work, where the movement is a tiny nod and most people push far too hard, so the big muscles at the side of the neck take over and the neck feels tighter afterward. The third is too much in one session.
That last one you can test at home. If your neck is clearly worse the next morning, that session was too much for now: halve the repetitions, or go back a stage, and build up again from there. Dropping back for a week is part of how this works rather than a setback.
That leaves the line between a normal reaction and a warning. A little aching in the neck and shoulders during or after exercise is common, and usually fine if it settles within a day and is not building week on week. Pain, numbness or pins and needles spreading into your arm or hand is a different thing: stop that exercise and tell your physio. If one particular movement flares you every single time you return to it, have a physio watch you do it instead of making another attempt on your own.
What exercises and activities should you avoid with neck pain?
The gym version of this question gets asked more than the stretching version. The answer has the same shape: far fewer than the lists suggest, and what changes is usually the load and the position, not whether the movement is allowed. The useful part is knowing where a neck gets loaded when nobody meant to load it.
Overhead and behind-the-neck work takes the head toward the end of bending back while the arms are loaded. A bar resting across the back of the neck pushes the head forward for the whole set. Heavy pulling and pressing asks a lot of the muscles across the top of the shoulders, which is where most people with neck pain are already sore. And any position that has you holding your head up and still, which includes most mat work done face down or in a plank, is a long static hold for the neck whether you planned one or not.
None of those four is banned. Each is a reason to drop the load, shorten the set, or change the head position first and put the load back later. If you have high blood pressure, breathe steadily through every repetition and never hold your breath.
Two rules from the neck pain program are specific enough to repeat here. Do not drive or cycle until you can turn your head properly, because you need to be able to check over your shoulder. And skip the neck collar for everyday neck pain: the NHS advises against one, because it is better to keep the neck moving. A collar that was given to you after an operation or an injury is a different thing altogether. Wear that one exactly as the surgeon or doctor who gave it to you said, and ask them when it comes off, rather than taking the sentence above as permission to stop.
One more thing belongs here, because it decides whether this page applies to you at all. A general neck program is not written for neck pain that started after an accident or a fall, such as whiplash, it is not rehab after neck surgery, and it is not the right starting point if your main problem is pain traveling down one arm with numbness or tingling, which is what cervical radiculopathy covers. Each of those needs an assessment before any stretching question gets answered.
Is it bad to crack your neck every day?
One thing first, because the words get used for two different events. A neck that clicks or crackles by itself while you turn your head, or during a chin tuck, is not what this section is about, and cracking joints covers that noise. What follows is about deliberately forcing your neck to the end of its range to make it pop.
The honest answer has three parts, and none of them is a number.
First, what is on the record. One published case report describes a 40-year-old man with no significant past medical history who was seen cracking his own neck at work, developed neck pain and then stroke-like symptoms, and was found on imaging to have torn both vertebral arteries. Brain death was pronounced several days later, and the autopsy confirmed dissection tracts in both arteries with no traumatic injury to bone or soft tissue (Persons and Stauffer, 2024).
Second, what a case report can and cannot do. It can show that something has happened. It cannot tell you how often it happens, and no rate has been published for anyone to quote, including us. Neck cracking is extremely common and this outcome is not, and both halves of that sentence are true at the same time. The report's own opening line puts manipulation of the neck among the known risk factors for a vertebral artery tear, which is a different kind of statement from a rate and does not become one (Persons and Stauffer, 2024).
Third, the part the gentler pages leave out. The absence of a rate is not a clean bill of health. We cannot tell you that cracking your own neck is safe, because the evidence that would let anybody say so has not been produced, and saying it anyway would be the same error in the opposite direction. The framework will support one point about the movement itself: a self-crack is usually a fast push to the end of turning or bending the head back, which is exactly the position it asks clinicians to treat with caution. The framework also carries a case in which a patient's new symptoms came on especially after performing prescribed neck exercises and turned out to be a vertebral artery dissection, which is why the dizziness rule and the new-headache rule on this page are not formalities.
Those three parts are written for a reader whose neck has nothing else wrong with it, and some necks are not in that position. For them the answer is a straight no, not a discussion. Do not crack your own neck, and do not let anyone thrust-manipulate it unless the surgeon or the doctor looking after your neck has said so, if your neck has been operated on or fused, if you have broken a bone in your neck, if you have been told the joints at the top of your neck are loose or unstable, if you have rheumatoid arthritis, if you have been told you have a narrow spinal canal in the neck or narrowed arteries in the neck, if you have a condition that stiffens the spine such as ankylosing spondylitis, if you have Down syndrome or a stroke behind you, if you have been told there is cancer in your neck or spine, if pain, numbness or tingling runs down one of your arms, or if you have low bone density (osteoporosis) or have taken steroid tablets for a long time. The reason is the same in each case. A self-crack is a fast push to the end of the range, delivered by someone who has not examined the neck, and the framework asks for an examination and a check of blood vessel risk factors before any thrust technique. A crack you give yourself has had neither.
Several of those are things you only know because somebody told you, sometimes once, in words nobody repeated afterward. So if you are not sure whether one of them describes you, take it that one does. You lose nothing by leaving your neck alone, and the person who can settle it is the one with your scans and your history in front of them, which is worth asking at your next appointment rather than working out on your own.
If you have already done it and you feel fine, the timing is the part to know about. In these artery tears the neck pain or the headache is usually there from the beginning, while a stroke, if one follows, can arrive hours or days later, and that gap is the window in which treatment can reduce the chance of one (Arning and colleagues, 2022). Feeling fine in the minutes after a crack is therefore not the all clear it sounds like. New neck pain or a new headache afterward is a reason to be seen while you still feel well, and the emergency and same day lines below say which route that is.
A second published case gets at the frequency question instead. A 38-year-old man had cracked his own neck several times a day for years without anything happening, and then, immediately after doing it forcefully, developed sudden weakness down one side of his body. His scan showed two badly herniated discs in the middle of his neck pressing hard on the spinal cord. Surgery to take the pressure off the cord went ahead 16 hours after his symptoms started, a week of inpatient rehabilitation followed, and his strength was normal again by two months. The surgeons who wrote it up could find no earlier case of it happening from a person's own manipulation (Raj and colleagues, 2026).
One case again, and again no rate comes out of it. What it does take away is the argument that years without harm prove the habit is safe, because years without harm is exactly what he had.
Past the case reports, what the question is really asking is not whether one crack is dangerous. It is whether doing it several times a day, for years, is a problem. The useful answer there is about the stiffness underneath the habit: if the urge comes back within minutes or a few hours, the crack is not resolving anything, and the stiffness is the thing to have assessed. Neck rotation taken only as far as feels comfortable asks nothing of the end of range, and the chin tuck and the upper trapezius stretch are where the neck pain program starts.
Those three are not a way round the do-not-crack list further up, though. If you are in one of the groups it names, they wait for the same go-ahead: from your surgeon or the doctor looking after your neck after surgery or a break, and from your physio or doctor for the rest.
Having somebody else crack your neck is a separate question with its own settled answer. Do not let anyone crack or thrust-manipulate your neck while it is irritable if they have not examined it first. The international framework for the neck asks physios to examine you and check for blood vessel risk factors before any thrust technique (Rushton 2023). That covers a friend or a relative doing it as a favor, who has examined nothing, and it covers a day when your neck does not happen to be sore.
Should you be stretching your neck at all?
This is the question behind the question. A Cochrane review of exercise for mechanical neck disorders found low-quality evidence that stretching alone may not change pain or function, from immediately after treatment through to short-term follow-up. The more consistent signal in the same review, mainly for neck pain lasting more than three months, was for strengthening and endurance work for the neck and for the muscles around the shoulder blades and shoulders (Gross and colleagues, 2015). That review also found no high-quality evidence overall, so the uncertainty runs in both directions.
The guideline puts stretching in the same place. For neck pain lasting longer than about three months, the JOSPT clinical practice guideline recommends hands-on treatment combined with stretching, strengthening and endurance exercise for the neck and the shoulder girdle (Blanpied and colleagues, 2017). Stretching appears there inside a combination and never on its own. We do not give that recommendation a grade, because the grading in that document cannot be read off the wording of a sentence.
So part of the answer to which neck stretches you should avoid is that stretching is the thinnest-evidence part of a neck program in the first place. That is not a reason to stop if a stretch makes your day easier, and comfort is a legitimate thing to want. It is a reason not to spend six weeks perfecting your stretches while the strength work waits, which is the order the neck pain program is built in on purpose. If long spells in one position are what sets your neck off, forward head posture covers that side of it.
Who needs to ask before stretching their neck?
Five groups, and the first of them overrides everything on this page.
After neck surgery or a broken bone in the neck, check with your surgeon or physio before you start. Their plan comes first and nothing here replaces any of it, including the parts that say what to avoid and for how long. Get the go-ahead from your surgeon, or the doctor looking after your neck, before you stretch at all, and follow their limits on how far and how fast it may move rather than this page.
One point here runs the opposite way to most people's instinct. If a level in your neck has been fused, that level no longer moves, and the levels above and below it take the movement it used to do. An end-range stretch therefore asks more of an operated neck than of an unoperated one, not less. How much movement is wanted, and when, depends on what was done and on whether the bone has joined, which is a question for the team that scanned you. Surgeons differ on the answer, and on whether a collar is used at all, so there is no timetable on this page for you to follow instead.
Until the team that operated on you says otherwise, keep out of the end of every neck movement and do not crack your neck. New neck pain of its own, or a new click or grinding feeling where you were operated on, is a question for that team too, rather than something to stretch out. Two post-operative warnings in the list below also move faster than anything else on this page: the airway line for the days and the weeks after an operation on the front of the neck, and the returning-symptom line after surgery for a squeezed nerve or pressure on the spinal cord.
If you have rheumatoid arthritis, or you have been told the spaces around the nerves or spinal cord in your neck are narrowed, check with your physio or doctor before you start. The same applies if you have Down syndrome or have been told the top of your neck is unstable. Some movements, such as tipping your head right back or pushing a stretch to the end of the range, may need to be changed or left out. Include yourself here too if you have a condition that stiffens or fuses the spine, such as ankylosing spondylitis: a neck like that has little end of range left to borrow, and the warning list below says what even a minor knock can do to it.
For two of those groups, ask is too soft a word. If you have been told the space around your spinal cord in your neck is narrowed, leave tipping the head right back to the end of the movement out altogether rather than testing it. In fifty people with cord compression from wear in the neck, scanned in each position before surgery, the cord was being pinched in about three quarters of them with the head tipped back, against about a third with the head in its neutral position, and the space around the cord was at its smallest in that tipped-back position (Zhang and colleagues, 2011). Narrowing gets described in a lot of different words, so if you were told about it but not whether it was around the nerves or around the spinal cord, leave end-range tipping back out until somebody with the scan report in front of them tells you which it was. And if you have been told the joints at the top of your neck are loose or unstable, which includes rheumatoid arthritis affecting the neck and Down syndrome, nothing on this page is to be forced with a hand in any direction: not the chin pulled down toward the chest, not the head tipped back, and not a turn pushed further round.
If you have low bone density (osteoporosis), or you have taken steroid tablets for a long time, ask your physio or doctor before pushing any neck movement to its end. The warning line about a car accident or a fall applies to you at a lower threshold than to most readers: even a minor one means being checked the same day before you do anything with the neck, and that is also true if you are 65 or older.
If you have been told you have a problem with the joints or the blood vessels at the top of your neck, check with your physio or doctor before you start. That covers a previous tear in one of the arteries in your neck, narrowed arteries in the neck or an unusual shape of them found on a scan, and a stroke or a mini-stroke behind you. That is the same group the sentence about manipulation above is written for. Ask specifically whether taking your neck to the end of turning it or bending it back is safe for you, and leave both out until somebody who has examined you says otherwise.
And if pain, numbness or tingling runs down one arm, this has stopped being a stretching question. The cervical radiculopathy program sets out which stretches come out when the arm is involved. That list lives there and not here, so there is only ever one copy of it to keep right.
Three more groups sit outside those five. If you have been told there is cancer in your neck or spine, now or in the past, the team treating it decides what your neck may do, so ask them before you stretch it or let anyone work on it. If you are pregnant, check with your midwife, doctor or physio before you start. And this page is written for adults: a child or teenager with neck pain needs to be seen by a doctor or physio rather than treated at home.
If you are not sure whether what you have is a stretching question at all, when neck pain is serious sorts every warning sign by how fast to act. The list at the foot of this page carries the same signs in full.
One sign in the list below appears twice, at two different speeds. Pain that is there all the time and does not ease with rest or changing position, or pain at night that keeps getting worse, is a same-day matter if you have had cancer at any time or have lost weight without trying, and otherwise needs your doctor within a few days. If you cannot tell which of those you have, treat it as the more urgent one.
Related exercise programs
Warning signs
Get emergency help now
- Emergency: any sign of a stroke, even if it goes away. That means a face that droops on one side, an arm you cannot lift or keep up, slurred or muddled speech, weakness or numbness on one side of your body or face, sudden blurred vision, double vision or loss of sight, trouble swallowing, sudden dizziness with unsteadiness or falling over, a sudden severe headache, or a sudden fall where your legs give way but you do not black out (a drop attack). Call emergency services straight away. With neck pain, these can rarely come from a tear in an artery in the neck.
- Emergency: a sudden, severe headache or neck pain that feels new and unlike anything you have had before. Call emergency services straight away.
- Emergency: a new headache, or new pain on one side of your face, jaw or neck, with a drooping eyelid or a smaller pupil on the same side, or with a new pulsing or whooshing sound in one ear that keeps time with your heartbeat. Call emergency services or go to an emergency department straight away, and do not drive yourself. This can be a tear in an artery in the neck (cervical artery dissection), which can lead to a stroke.
- Emergency: a new headache or neck pain, or both, that does not feel like ordinary neck pain. If this is your first bout, judge it by how it behaves rather than by how it compares. Either of the next two is enough on its own. One, it came on suddenly, in a single moment, even if it is not severe and even if it has eased since. Sudden onset counts on its own. Two, nothing you do changes it much: no position or rest makes a real difference, and after the first day or two it has not started to settle. It counts even if you have none of the other emergency signs above, and it matters more if it started after a neck injury or strain, even a minor one, a bout of heavy coughing, or having your neck manipulated. Go to an emergency department straight away, or call emergency services if you cannot get there safely, and do not drive yourself. Do not start these exercises, and do not have any hands-on treatment to your neck, until your neck has been checked. A tear in an artery in the neck can start as pain alone, often on one side, with nothing else to find. If it came on gradually rather than in a single moment, and you can find a position that eases it, follow the same day warning sign for this below instead. Pain that started in one moment stays with this emergency line even if a position now eases it.
- Emergency: a stiff neck with a fever, a severe headache that is getting worse, pain when you look at bright lights, confusion, or a rash that does not fade when you press a glass on it. Call emergency services. These can be signs of meningitis.
- Emergency: neck pain straight after a high-energy accident, such as a crash at high speed, a car that rolled over, being thrown from a vehicle, being hit by a vehicle while walking or cycling, a motorbike or quad bike accident, a horse riding accident, a diving injury, or a fall from a height or down several stairs. Keep still and call emergency services. If the neck pain only starts later and nobody has checked your neck since, keep your neck as still as you can, do not twist or bend it, and call emergency services or go to an emergency department straight away. Do not drive yourself, and tell them what kind of accident it was, because that is one of the things that decides whether you need a scan.
- Emergency: severe neck pain after a knock to the head, whatever the fall or the knock was like. Keep still and call emergency services, and do not let anyone move you until someone trained has checked your neck. If the neck pain only starts later and nobody has checked your neck since, go to an emergency department straight away, and do not drive yourself.
- Emergency: in the first days after the accident, numbness, tingling, pins and needles or weakness in your arms or legs, or a sudden electric shock feeling in your neck and back that runs into your arms or legs. If it starts straight after the accident, keep still and call emergency services. If it starts later, call emergency services or go to an emergency department straight away, and do not drive yourself.
- Emergency: new neck or back pain after a fall, a knock or a jolt, even a minor one such as a trip or a sudden stop in a car, if you have a condition that stiffens the spine, such as ankylosing spondylitis. Call emergency services or go to an emergency department straight away, do not drive yourself, and tell the staff about your spine condition, so they keep your neck and back in their usual position. A stiff spine can break after a small injury, and the break is easy to miss at first. If the pain started straight after the injury, or you also have numbness, tingling or weakness in your arms or legs, keep still and call emergency services.
- Emergency: neck, jaw or arm pain that comes with chest pain, shortness of breath, sweating or feeling sick. Call emergency services.
- Emergency: your arm, hand or fingers turn cold, pale, blue or gray compared with the other side. Call emergency services or go to an emergency department straight away, and do not drive yourself. The blood supply to the arm may be blocked.
- Emergency: new problems walking, for example your legs feel stiff, heavy or weak or you have become unsteady on your feet, new trouble controlling your bladder or bowels, or hands that suddenly become clumsy, for example you can no longer do up buttons. Call emergency services straight away. These can be signs of pressure on the spinal cord in the neck.
- Emergency: in the days or the weeks after an operation on the front of your neck, new swelling in your neck, trouble breathing, breathing that has turned noisy or whistling, a feeling that you can only breathe while sitting up, or trouble swallowing that is getting worse, with or without a fever. Call emergency services straight away. Do not phone the ward or your surgeon first and wait for someone to call back, do not drive and do not let anyone drive you in, and sit upright rather than lying down while you wait. Bleeding or swelling in front of the spine can narrow the airway in the first hours and the first day after this operation, swelling of the throat tissues can do it in the first three days, and an infection behind the throat can do it after that, which is why this line does not stop at the end of the first week (Debkowska and colleagues, 2019).
- Emergency: neck pain with a fever, or you feel hot, shivery or very unwell, and you also have new weakness, numbness or tingling in one or both arms or legs, new trouble walking, or new trouble with your bladder or bowels. Call emergency services or go to an emergency department straight away. This can be an infection pressing on the spinal cord or nerves in the neck (spinal epidural abscess), which needs emergency treatment.
- Emergency: you have had cancer, now or in the past, and your back or neck pain feels like a tight band around your body, or you have new or worsening pain spreading down an arm or leg, weakness, numbness, pins and needles or a loss of feeling in your arms or legs, trouble walking, or trouble controlling your bladder or bowels. Those symptoms count on their own, with or without back or neck pain. Call your cancer team's emergency number straight away, or go to an emergency department if you do not have one or cannot get through, and do not drive yourself. This can be cancer pressing on the spinal cord (metastatic spinal cord compression), which needs treatment straight away.
Get help now, day or night
- You are pregnant or had a baby in the last few weeks and have a severe headache that does not go away with simple painkillers, problems with your vision such as blurring or flashing lights, pain just below your ribs, vomiting, heartburn that does not go away with heartburn medicines, sudden swelling of your face, hands or feet, or you feel very unwell. Contact your maternity unit straight away, or get urgent medical help if you cannot reach them. These can be signs of pre-eclampsia, which can develop in the days or weeks after the birth and needs checking immediately. The same applies to a headache after an epidural or spinal anesthetic that gets worse when you sit or stand up and eases when you lie down. Call emergency services if you have a fit (seizure) or a headache that came on suddenly and is very severe. Call emergency services too if you have a headache with a stiff neck and either a high temperature or bright light hurting your eyes, as this can be meningitis.
- Same day: you have rheumatoid arthritis and get new neck pain, or a new headache at the back of your head that keeps coming back. If it comes with tingling or numbness in your hands or arms, get medical advice the same day. If you also feel unsteady on your feet or your legs feel stiff, heavy or weak, call emergency services straight away. Without any of those, tell your doctor or rheumatology team within a few days, and leave out any neck exercises until you have been checked.
Get help today
- Same day: a new headache or neck pain, or both, that does not feel like ordinary neck pain, that came on gradually rather than in a single moment, that started after a neck injury or strain, even a minor one, a bout of heavy coughing, or having your neck manipulated, but that does ease when you change position or rest. Get checked the same day before you start these exercises or have any hands-on treatment to your neck. If nothing you do changes it much any more, or it has not started to settle after a day or two, or it did come on in a single moment, follow the emergency warning sign for this above.
- Same day: you have had an operation on your neck for a squeezed nerve or for pressure on the spinal cord, and the tingling, numbness or arm pain has come back after settling, or new weakness has appeared in a hand or arm. Get advice from the team that operated the same day. What a returning symptom means after that operation depends on what was done and on what your scan showed, so it is their question rather than a physio's. If you also have new trouble walking, new trouble controlling your bladder or bowels, or hands that have suddenly become clumsy, use the emergency line above instead and call emergency services straight away.
- Same day: dizziness, a spinning feeling or feeling sick that comes on when you turn or tip your head, without any of the emergency signs above. Stop the exercises and get medical advice the same day. If you faint, it does not settle within a few minutes of sitting still, or you cannot stand or walk steadily, call emergency services.
- Same day: hands that have slowly become clumsy, for example trouble doing up buttons or dropping things, or numbness in both hands. Get medical advice the same day. These can be signs of pressure on the spinal cord in the neck (cervical myelopathy). If the clumsiness or numbness gets worse quickly, call emergency services straight away.
- Same day: pain or tingling in both arms at the same time, rather than in one. Get medical advice the same day. This can also be a sign of pressure on the spinal cord in the neck.
- Same day: an electric shock feeling runs down your back or into your arms or legs as your head bends forward. Stop and get medical advice the same day.
- Same day: pins and needles in an arm together with neck or arm pain, or an arm that feels heavy or weak, and nobody has checked it yet. Get medical advice the same day.
- Same day: an arm or hand that is getting weaker. Get medical advice the same day.
- Same day: severe neck or arm pain that comes on suddenly or is getting worse quickly, without any of the emergency signs above. Get medical advice the same day.
- Same day: neck pain with a fever or chills, or you feel generally unwell. Get medical advice the same day, and go to an emergency department if you feel very unwell.
- Same day: new, frequent headaches with pain or tenderness at your temples or on your scalp, or jaw pain when you eat or talk, or, if you are 50 or over, a temple or scalp that has become tender to touch, for example when you brush your hair or rest your head on a pillow. Get medical advice the same day. These can be signs of inflamed arteries in the head (temporal arteritis, also called giant cell arteritis). If your vision changes, call emergency services.
- Same day: new neck pain and you have had cancer, now or in the past, or you have lost weight without trying. Get medical advice the same day and mention it. If you are being treated for cancer now, contact your cancer team the same day.
- Same day: neck pain after a car accident or a fall, even a minor one, if you are 65 or older, have low bone density (osteoporosis) or have taken steroid tablets for a long time. Get your neck checked by a doctor the same day, for example at an emergency department, before you start these exercises. At 65 or older, doctors usually want an X-ray or scan of the neck after an accident.
- Same day: pain that is there all the time and does not ease with rest or changing position, or pain at night that keeps getting worse. If you have had cancer, now or in the past, or you have lost weight without trying, get medical advice the same day.
Book an appointment
- Within a few days: pain that is there all the time and does not ease with rest or changing position, or pain at night that keeps getting worse. See your doctor within a few days.
Common questions
Can you crack your own neck?
Physically most people can, and whether you should is a question nobody can answer with a number. One published case report describes a 40-year-old man with no significant past medical history who was seen cracking his own neck at work, developed neck pain and then stroke-like symptoms, and was found on imaging to have torn both vertebral arteries; brain death was pronounced several days later (Persons and Stauffer, 2024). A single case report cannot tell you how often that happens, and no rate has been published. It does not make the habit safe either, and we are not going to tell you it is. For some necks it is not a question of how often at all. If your neck has been operated on or fused, if you have broken a bone in it, if you have been told the joints at the top of your neck are loose or unstable, if you have rheumatoid arthritis, if you have been told you have a narrow spinal canal in the neck or narrowed arteries in the neck, if you have a condition that stiffens the spine such as ankylosing spondylitis, Down syndrome, a stroke behind you, cancer in the neck or spine, pain, numbness or tingling running down an arm, or low bone density or long-term steroid tablets, do not do it, and do not let anyone else thrust-manipulate your neck unless the surgeon or the doctor looking after it has said so. Several of those are things you only know because you were told, so if you are not sure whether one of them describes you, take it that one does and ask before you do anything to your neck. A self-crack is usually a fast push to the end of turning or bending the head back, which is the position the international manual therapy framework for the neck singles out when it tells clinicians to work cautiously at the end of range of cervical movement, particularly extension and rotation. If a new headache or neck pain that does not feel like ordinary neck pain follows a crack, go to an emergency department straight away, without driving yourself, if it came on suddenly in a single moment or if nothing you do changes it much and it has not started to settle after a day or two. If it does ease when you change position or rest, get checked the same day instead.
How often is it okay to crack your neck?
No published figure exists for this, so anyone giving you a number is guessing, and we will not. For some necks it is not a frequency question either: if your neck has been operated on or fused, or you have been told the joints at the top of it are loose or unstable, do not crack it at all unless the surgeon or the doctor looking after your neck has said so. The same answer covers the longer list of necks further up this page, which includes rheumatoid arthritis, a narrow spinal canal, low bone density and an arm with pain, numbness or tingling in it. If you are not sure whether you are on that list, take it that you are. The pattern is the thing to look at instead. If the urge comes back within minutes or a few hours, the crack is not resolving the stiffness underneath it, and that stiffness is the thing to get assessed. Gentle neck rotation taken only as far as feels comfortable, a chin tuck, and an upper trapezius stretch with the shoulder anchored are the usual first steps, and none of them asks anything of the end of range. They are not a way round that list: after neck surgery or a break they wait for your surgeon's go-ahead, and for the rest of that list for your physio's or doctor's. Two routes matter whatever you decide. If a neck movement makes you dizzy, stop, sit still until it settles, and get medical advice the same day before you try again. If you faint, it does not settle within a few minutes of sitting still, or you cannot stand or walk steadily, call emergency services.
Are there neck arthritis exercises to avoid?
Wear changes in the neck do not come with a banned list either, and the principle is the same as everywhere else on this page: stay inside a comfortable range, leave out full head circles, and stop anything that sends pain, numbness or tingling into your arm or hand. One group does need to ask first. If you have been told the spaces around the nerves or spinal cord in your neck are narrowed, check with your physio or doctor before you start, and the same applies if you have rheumatoid arthritis, if you have Down syndrome, or if you have been told the top of your neck is unstable. Movements such as tipping your head right back, or pushing a stretch to the end of the range, may need to be changed or left out. If the narrowing is around your spinal cord, treat tipping your head right back as out rather than as a maybe: scanned in that position, people with cord compression from wear in the neck have the least room around the cord there (Zhang and colleagues, 2011). If you were told about narrowing but not which of the two it was, treat it as the spinal cord version until somebody with the scan report tells you otherwise. Two signs on this page matter more than any exercise choice for this group: hands that have slowly become clumsy, with trouble doing up buttons or dropping things, or numbness in both hands, needs medical advice the same day, and new problems walking, new trouble controlling your bladder or bowels, or hands that suddenly become clumsy means calling emergency services straight away.
Which stretches should you avoid with neck and shoulder pain?
When the top of the shoulder is sore as well, the stretches themselves usually stay and the set-up changes. The upper trapezius stretch is built for exactly this area and works only if the shoulder stays down, so one hand holds the edge of a table or a chair seat and the head tilts away; letting that shoulder hitch up toward the ear takes the stretch away. The levator scapulae stretch aims at the top inner corner of the shoulder blade, and the hand on the back of your head is only there to guide, not to pull. Reaching the other hand behind your back can be uncomfortable if the shoulder is sore, and holding the edge of the chair seat instead still anchors it. What should come out, for now, is any stretch that sends pain, numbness or tingling down into the arm or hand. If pins and needles in an arm come with neck or arm pain, or the arm feels heavy or weak, and nobody has looked at it yet, get medical advice the same day.
References
- Gross A, Kay TM, Paquin JP, et al. Exercises for mechanical neck disorders. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. 2015;(1):CD004250. https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD004250.pub5
- Blanpied PR, Gross AR, Elliott JM, et al. Neck pain: revision 2017. Clinical practice guidelines linked to the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health from the Orthopaedic Section of the American Physical Therapy Association. Journal of Orthopaedic and Sports Physical Therapy. 2017;47(7):A1-A83. https://doi.org/10.2519/jospt.2017.0302
- Rushton A, Carlesso LC, Flynn T, et al. International framework for examination of the cervical region for potential of vascular pathologies of the neck prior to orthopaedic manual therapy (OMT) intervention: International IFOMPT Cervical Framework. IFOMPT. 2020, with 2023 addendum. https://www.ifompt.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/IFOMPT-cervical-framework-final-2020-Add-2023.pdf
- Rushton A, Carlesso LC, Flynn T, et al. International framework for examination of the cervical region for potential of vascular pathologies of the neck prior to musculoskeletal intervention: International IFOMPT Cervical Framework. Journal of Orthopaedic and Sports Physical Therapy. 2023;53(1):7-22. https://doi.org/10.2519/jospt.2022.11147
- Persons JE, Stauffer S. Fatal Vertebral Artery Dissection Following Self-Manipulation of the Cervical Spine. American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology. 2024;45(4):352-354. doi:10.1097/PAF.0000000000000932. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38497612/
- Raj S, Kumar D, Vb S, et al. Brown-Sequard Syndrome after Self-administered Manual Manipulation of the Cervical Spine: A Case Report. Journal of Orthopaedic Case Reports. 2026;16(10):97-102. https://doi.org/10.13107/jocr.2026.v16.i10.8200
- Doukhi D, Debette S, Mawet J. Headaches attributed to cranial and cervical artery dissections. The Journal of Headache and Pain. 2025;26(1):28. https://doi.org/10.1186/s10194-025-01958-9
- Arning C, Hanke-Arning K, Eckert B. The clinical features of dissection of the cervical brain-supplying arteries. Deutsches Arzteblatt International. 2022;119(35-36):581-587. https://doi.org/10.3238/arztebl.m2022.0238
- Davies BM, Mowforth OD, Smith EK, Kotter MR. Degenerative cervical myelopathy. BMJ. 2018;360:k186. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.k186
- Zhang L, Zeitoun D, Rangel A, Lazennec JY, Catonne Y, Pascal-Moussellard H. Preoperative evaluation of the cervical spondylotic myelopathy with flexion-extension magnetic resonance imaging: about a prospective study of fifty patients. Spine. 2011;36(17):E1134-E1139. https://doi.org/10.1097/BRS.0b013e3181f822c7
- Darouiche RO. Spinal epidural abscess. New England Journal of Medicine. 2006;355(19):2012-2020. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMra055111
- Debkowska MP, Butterworth JF, Moore JE, Kang S, Appelbaum EN, Zuelzer WA. Acute post-operative airway complications following anterior cervical spine surgery and the role for cricothyrotomy. Journal of Spine Surgery. 2019;5(1):142-154. https://doi.org/10.21037/jss.2019.03.01
- National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). Spinal metastases and metastatic spinal cord compression. NICE guideline NG234. Published September 2023. https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng234
- National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). Head injury: assessment and early management. NICE guideline NG232. Published 18 May 2023. https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng232
- NHS. Neck pain. Page last reviewed 27 April 2023. https://www.nhs.uk/symptoms/neck-pain-and-stiff-neck/
- NHS. Symptoms of a stroke. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/stroke/symptoms/
- NHS. Meningitis. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/meningitis/
- NHS. Temporal arteritis. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/temporal-arteritis/
- NHS. Cervical spondylosis. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/cervical-spondylosis/
Written and checked by the PocketPhysio editorial team. Last updated 2026-11-06.
This page is general education, not a diagnosis or a personal treatment plan. See a physiotherapist or doctor for advice about your own situation.