Pulled cervical (neck) muscle?

I feel like I keep pulling my cervical muscle during exercise; I've pulled it before and was in a sling for it but now I just deal with the pain. It's bothered me since I've started lifting weights about 2 weeks ago. It stays for about a day then goes away then comes back. Why is this happening to me? Ugh it's really irritating =/.

Could be poor lifting technique.

What were you doing when it pulled?

I wake up and it's extremely sore. I feel fine after the workout.

Absolutely do not ignore pain when lifting. You could cause a serious injury that will put you out of action for much longer. It could be bad posture in general that made the muscle weak to start with. I used to get neck issues sometimes after lifting even though I had plenty of people check my form, and it turned out to be from an old whiplash injury that had made one neck muscle weaker than the others. It was reflected in the way I carried my head - slightly too far forward.

Free weights work on all muscles, unlike machines, so your workout depends on well-balanced strength all-round. Wait for it to recover completely, and then work up to that weight slowly (like over 3 weeks) from a much lighter weight on all upper-body lifts.