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General Anatomy
Scalenes are a nasty family of 3 (sometimes 4) muscles arising out of all 7 cervical vertebrae, making their way into ribs 1 and 2

When It’s Squishy the scalenes have 4 jobs: holding the head when sitting, standing or reading in bed; micro-adjusting the head so we can walk or run fixing our eyes on a stable point as we go; rotating the head; assisting breathing by lifting ribs 1 and 2. If you’re someone who breathes while keeping your head up to see, this muscle is unavoidably beaten up.

When Not Squishy the scalenes become THE SCHOOL OF HARD NECKS – perhaps the orneriest dragon around.

SCHOOL OF HARD NECKS has a staggeringly wide reach of referred pain down the arm, into the head, into the hands and behind the shoulder blade.

Equally noteworthy, SCHOOL OF HARD NECKS, by closing the space between rib 1 and collar bone compresses the nerves and blood supply of the arm.

Getting School of Hard Necks

Past Trauma –Since the scalenes manage the universal activities of breathing and holding our head up so we can see, everyone has put wear and tear on these muscles

Overuse Injury Active Overuse –Scalene is unavoidable to beat up with activity because it assists breathing pulling up and depressing the rib cage with hard breathing – Furthermore, any kind of head whip from running into a wall playing squash (been there) and taking a divet in golf (done that) causes a fast deceleration of the head bringing on School of Hard Necks

Passive Overuse –The scalenes are hard at work holding up the head when we sit up in bed to read or hold our hands forward for typing while looking up at the computer screen

Repetitive Stress –walking or jogging the scalenes are repetitively assisting breathing and slightly adjusting readjusting the head over and over to keep our gaze fixed on a steady as we move about…Scalene never gets a break and everyone goes to the School of Hard Necks

Disuse Injury –Sitting and sleeping again are the culprits – People say they “slept wrong” when the neck was held awkwardly for several hours during sleep

Emotional State -the fact that most people “hold their stress in their neck” means that most people have pre-disposing School of Hard Necks as emotional stress, effecting tension on all the muscles settles on our most vulnerable points

Trauma Begets Trauma –Any weakening of the scalenes compromises our tolerance for “trauma future” – accidents will always happen – that is why they are accidents, and the danger of School of Hard Necks is we are ill-prepared for life’s unpredicatables