Green_Manelishi:
Greetings.
A "chronic arthritic condition of the neck" has adversely effected my ability to engage in heavy weight lifting. Indeed, I am best off to avoid any squats (pressure on neck area and spine) as well as heavy bench presses.
My question to you: what body exercises are best to perform so I can somewhat approximate the strength level to which I became accustomed when I was able to squat and bench press considerably more than my body weight?
I have access to an elliptical trainer as well as considerable amount of free weights and olympic bars (cambered curling and straight), adjustable bench and squat rack. I can also install a chinning bar in my cellar if that is suggested.
Ahh! I am sorry that I missed this post.
First off, I am wary of suggesting anything over the internet to compensate for any arthritic injury/condition of the spine. Believe it or not, disc issues are much more straight forward to deal with. It is best if you design your program with the assitance of a physical therapist familiar with your specific case.
That said, I have my own back injury to deal with (lumbar) that does not like barbell squats, either, and I think you can do most of the alternatives for leg exercises that I do myself. Your challenge is that anytime you hold a dumbbell in your hand, it will pull on your neck as your shoulders are partially suspended by it. So, it can be difficult to provide external resistance without risking aggravation of your arthritis. This is especially important to avoid with spinal arthritis, as chronic inflammation can lead to calcification and, hence, severe pain and neurological disfunction. Yikes!
One great way to cut the risk and the need for resistance is to perform single-sided exercises: single-leg squats, standing lunges, single-leg bridges, and the like can be plenty difficult without any weight at all. Because you must balance on one leg, it is much harder than just doing half of your two-legged weight.
Likewise, any upper body exercise you are familiar with becomes all the more difficult if you do one side at a time, forcing your body off balance while engaging many more muscles into stabilization. This could include single-arm dumbbell chest press, single-arm bent over row, single-arm shoulder press, etc. Of course, there is a whole world of calisthenics and bodyweight exercises that will get you in great shape without any weight at all. Any exercise that involves effort from your arms, however, will always have the potential to affect your cervical spine.
Coming full circle, it is extremely difficult to recommend specific exercises for you over the internet. If you were a client of mine (with MD approval), we would just spend our sessions together experimenting with many different exercises and using pain as our guide. If you can do an exercise and it doesn't hurt while you're performing it, nor does it aggravate your arthritis after the fact, then it is unlikely that such an exercise will be a problem. However, you must approach any new exercise conservatively, stop when you notice things aren't right, and talk to your MD or PT if you push too far.
Cameron
