Over the past 20 years there has been a significant increase in the awareness of the devastating impact concussions can have on athletes, military personnel and our youth. There is a lot of discussion around the problem, but very little progress has been made on prevention. Fortunately, mother nature has already found the solution and provided us with our very own shock-absorption system. This is the role of the neck muscles. In fact, research in high school athletes has shown that every one pound of increased neck strength leads to a 5% decreased risk in concussion. However, best evidence does not recommend traditional neck strengthening as an effective means to lower concussion risk. Why is that? Because muscles respond very specifically to the type of training they are exposed to. Traditional neck strengthening involves taking a heavy weight and pushing the head against it. This will improve the neck’s ability to take a heavy weight and push against it. However, it will not necessarily improve the neck muscles’ ability to respond and react quickly to stabilize the head against a potentially concussive blow. This presentation will provide a scoping review of the current evidence around the role the neck muscles play in mitigating concussion risk. It will examine whether these neck muscles can be trained to help decrease an individual’s concussion risk. With an understanding of muscle physiology, it will outline the six key training principles that must be incorporated into a training program aimed at providing the best opportunity for the neck muscles to help protect against concussion.
Dr. Theo Versteegh is a physiotherapist with over 20 years’ experience in sports medicine. During his undergraduate training in physiotherapy at Western University, he was a member of the National championship Mustang football team. He has worked clinically across Canada and internationally in the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia. In 2010, he completed his Master of Science in Physiotherapy researching the effects of dynamic warm up in older golfers. In 2016 he completed his PhD in Physiotherapy at Western University exploring the role neck muscles play in protecting the head from concussion. He has been conducting primary research in the field of neck training and injury prevention ever since.
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