Last night while doing behind the neck barbell presses I foolishly decided to increase the weight on my first set by a large amount.
After the 6th rep, as I lowered the bar behind my neck I couldn’t manage to get it up for my fourth rep. I struggled and made it in the end, but as I was raising the bar I felt a sharp pain in the back of my neck. Last night I couldn’t sleep properly as the pain was still there. Today I can’t turn my head sideways or straighten my neck without a sharp pain.
Has anyone else ever experienced this?
Would a proper warm up avoid this in the future (Can anyone recommend any good warm up excercises for the neck?), or do you think it was purely down to form, as I think I leaned my neck forward a little on my last rep?
“After the 6th rep, as I lowered the bar behind my neck I couldn’t manage to get it up for my fourth rep”
??? So was it your 7th rep or was it your 4th?
Seems to me that
a) You’re using too much weight
b) you pulled something - let your neck recover , otherwise youre risking making matters much worse.
c) why are you rolling th bar up and down your neck? Place the bar on your traps, and leave it there for the whole movement. YOu move it up and down the neck, thats what happens.
You may have pulled something or pinched a nerve.
After rereading your post, it’s obvious you pulled too much weight.
You increased the load by a good ammount on your 1st set - but did you warm up properly and progressively? You may have been lucky you didnt injure anything else.
Nothing pisses me off more than watching some misinformed soul loading the bar to ridiculous ammounts without proper strength levels or warm-up, and without so much as a spotter just in case.
But hey, its your own body. Once you hurt yourself you wont be pulling any weights for a while though.
Can’t say for sure how or what you did, but I would try and be careful with that area for a week or so…if it doesn’t improve, it’s time to have someone check it out.
Hmmmm sharp pain when you turn your head? Get a odd numb feeling when you do it? I know from doing grappling I’ve had my neck do the same thing. I think it may be a pinched nerve? Could be wrong but it will be a bugger for like 3 days and then it will start to feel way better and be gone by the 5th day. 
I know exactly what it is. Levator Scapula Strain. Poliquin talked about those with imbalances straining this muscle when doing behind the neck press in muscle media a long time ago. Im good for little tidbits like this. Get some ART. Also doing neck bridges helped mine out tremendously.