Sore neck from shooting rifles?

[BonnieB]

Ladies,

Lately the left side of my neck is stiff and sore, especially in the morning. Do you think this could be caused by shouldering a rifle?

If so, suggestions on remedies? (remedies do not include selling my rifle ).

[kaligaran]

Never had that happen but it could be that you are holding your head funny when shooting, perhaps to look through your sights
Next time you're at the range pay attention to your posture.

Perhaps you need to raise your optic (if you are using one)?

[G-Man WC]

Are you shooting a rifle with a scope?
Low rings or a short stocked rifle could give you issues.
-g

[FreshPrinceofRP]

If your scopes/sight are spot on just work on your breathing, and trying to lower your heart rate/blood pressure.
Using a slow 5 count for a stomach/esophagus breath in. Use a slow 5 count on the out breath, through the nose if possible. Try to pull the trigger in between breathing in and out.
Just relaxing and naturally reacting to a shot after proper trigger follow through helped a lot with me and back pain. ( I have permanent scoliosis)
The only other thing I could reccomend are neck rolls, and "Yes, No, Maybe So's".
You lay on the ground, raise your head with all limbs down and nod "yes" (chin up, down), "no" (chin to each shoulder), and "maybe so" a full Indian head bobble. Do those each 10-20 times in a row 3 times a week and you'll beef up neck muscles.

Other than physical trainer cures, go call an advice nurse with your insurance, call a local (in your state) advice nurse and they basically have to give you a certain amount of help/advice.

[movie zombie]

are you sure this is shooting related? other activity? heart issue?

[BonnieB]

I'm pretty sure this is about shooting, because it's worst the day after 2 hours on the rifle range, and then gets better and better over the next two days.

No other significant health problems. MV, thanks for asking that question, I wouldn't have thought of it.

[Melissa]

Being an IIT for Appleseed, here are some suggestions of mine (most of which are based on experience):

-Test to see if you're cross-eye dominant. For a right-hander, this means that your left eye sees better than the right, and vise versa for a lefty. If you're cross-eye dominant, then you'll be craning your neck awkwardly so that the eye opposite to your trigger hand can look through the sights.

-Work on your steady hold factors. Make sure you're relaxing right into that sling, and you have a good turkey neck & cheek weld; when you're in prone, make sure that support leg is in a straight line with the spine, at a 30-degree angle to the target.

-Also, if your sights/optics are placed too high, you'll know if you can't look through them at the same time you have a good solid cheek weld, and you feel like you have to raise your head in order to get proper sight alignment. You can fix this by getting a cheek riser, which can actually be very cost effective; I have one on my 10/22, and it's just a sleeve with differently sized foam pads that just slips right over the stock; no drilling is required, and the whole thing costs less than $20. http://www.sportsmanswarehouse.com/s...0052/cat100041

[Desdemmonna]

Are you using a shoulder pad?
Sights might be causing the crick as mentioned above, I had to adjust my iron sights 0.08 so I wasn't slouching forward when shooting as much.