Aches And Pains ?

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Pipster

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newton le willows
After a 3 hour session at the lathe folllowing a 7 year break , I woke up the following morning with excrutiating pain across the back of my shoulders, back of my neck and between my shoulder blades !!! has anyone else experienced this or had I just been sleeping in a bad position ?
 
Make sure that your lathe is at a good height. Generally speaking the centre of the lathe (drive centre) should be about at elbow height. If you are bending at all you should check the height. Obviously there are times when you need to bend but not as a general posture. I am 6'5" and my lathe looks ridiculous the height it is but it works from me and I suffer from back problems anyway.

Pete
 
Ive started back after a lot of years away and for the first few weeks suffered similar problems,I found my lathe needed lifting 2 inches higher and also I take a few minutes out every 20 minutes or so,Im getting used to the lathe again and the pains have gone.
 
Hi

In a previous life I trained/qualified as a sports fitness instructor/personal trainer and covered in depth the anatomy, physiology of the body, together with sports injuries.

The previous info given is as from what I can remember spot on. The pain will come from the trapisius muscle which is a complex muscle that runs on a triangle across your shoulders, up neck and down the mid section of your neck and back.

Tension is as said one of the main causes of stress within this muscle and can cause a lot of pain, but nothing serious if you do not let it carry on.

Your head is very heavy and if your lathe is set too low as stated you can for long periods of time be looking down more than needed which can cause stress on the central area of the muscle, so sitting at a computer in the wrong posture can also do it.

Raise the lathe to the correct height if not already done. It it is at the correct height make sure your posture is correct.

Your trapisius also raises/shrugs your shoulder so the basic fact of holding the tools and working will cause new movement in a way that you may have not done for some time. But you should only have stiffness in this situation and not great pain.

So look at your posture, how you hold your head and lathe set up.

The trapisius is a large muscle and in some cases a spasm in the uper neck can give you pain down in your buttocks, making you think that you have a lower back problem when in fact the problem is much higher up.
 
I hope you feel better soon! As others have already mentioned, it could simply be tension from 3 hours concentrating and using muscles in a way you haven't for a while - I've just got over two days of a seriously stiff & painful neck which I can't find a cause for (unless it was down to unloading several lightweight sacks of rubbish from a van in the cold?). Luckily it did not affect my ability to stand at the lathe & turn 64 widgits for a very urgent job yesterday!
 
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