This question is often asked of chiropractors because people associate the cracking or popping of one's neck with a chiropractic adjustment. The two are not the same thing. If a person has a desire to pop his neck or back it's usually because a part of his spine is fixated or jammed causing another part to move too much and pop a lot, sometimes by itself. It's the jammed or fixated part that must be properly adjusted by a chiropractor so the rest of the spinal column will stop being so movable and noisy.

When you crack or pop your neck you're relieving tension for a little while, but not giving yourself an adjustment. After a while the urge to pop or crack reappears because the cause of the spinal tension, the fixation or jammed vertebrae, has not been corrected.