Neck and back pain

hi physioroute here, i've got a few ideas... sound like you have a degree of upper core instability to me. Can't obviously say much without assessing you but when you do your upper / shoulder work think about "growing tall" through the centre of your head, and utilising more of the shoulder blade region, rather than the shoulders or front chest muscles. What often happens is that overworking the front chest muscles can cause an "imbalance" resulting in the muscles that control and set you shoulderblades in place to "switch off" (untechnical in terms but hope you get the gist). By "growing tall" you activate the posterior (back) stabilising muscles deep in your core (upper) and then reduce the strain and overactivity of the global and local movers (the muscels that work to move a limb)this should refuce the feeling of a strained muscle. onviously you may have to reduce the loads that you use, as these muscels will be unuse to working this hard, hope this helps let me know what happens or if i can help any further

Thanks for your reply physioroute. Do you think I need to do some extra strength work on my neck, as this seems to be the weak point. Also would a sports massage help?