Protect Yo' Neck: A question about neck exercises

[rofesuotydaer]

Rip,

Between here and Andy's section I thought here might be best.

Does training the neck with weighted resistance need to be performed differently than other training?

Is there a distinction to be made between types of neck movements, e.g. flexion/extension, rotation, protraction/retraction and how they should be programmed for incremental overloading? Does the nature of the cervical spine and how it articulates warrant specific programming considerations apart from how one would train any other movement?

How quickly can the actual joint tissues adapt to incremental overloading? And how does the anatomy of the neck and head dictate how one should do a movement, i.e. what should be avoided?

[Mark Rippetoe]

What is the normal function of the neck musculature?

[stuffedsuperdud]

In 2011 I kept one of those headband neck harness things and a 10lb plate at my desk. My boss asked what it was about so I told him I wanted a big neck to make sure my head was never popped out of position + you know, chicks dig a yoked man, obviously. Takeo Spikes gets laid, right? He rolled his eyes and made a joke about my side gig sucking dicks for $4 a pop and then reminded me that he's training for some sort of masters physique show. Later that year he drove his truck into a telephone pole and broke his neck when the airbag snapped his head back. He's sort of okay, sans car, so we can joke about it, but he can't turn his head to the left without wincing. My neck never actually got much bigger from the harness so I guess the moral of this run-on non-story is to do your cleans, snatches, and deadlifts.

[solitaire]

I'm guessing the neck muscles respond to training the same way other muscles do .
Their function, I think, is to support and stabilise the head. Boxers (for instance) train their neck muscles to help them take punches.
Ross Enamait has some tips for this.

[unruhschuh]

Stabilizing the neck. Also moving the neck around, but usually never against a large resistance. Thus I assume you think training your neck using 'movements' is rubbish.

We also don't train our back muscles by moving our spine around, but rather by doing deadlifts during which the back muscles stabilize the spine.

Anyway, moving the spine while under load doesn't seem to be a good idea.

[Mark Rippetoe]

If isometric stabilization is the function of the neck muscles, then exercises which require neck stability -- either directly, like the deadlift, bench, and press, or indirectly, like the squat -- work the neck muscles. If you are a football lineman who uses his helmet as a weapon, it makes sense to do extra neck work. If you are a lifter, your neck will grow accidentally.

[climber511]

I recently went through a sleep apnea test. The first thing the doctor did was measure my neck. He said bigger necks can more easily relax (muscle not as much as fat but still an issue according to him). The tissue "sags" into the airway more readily when they relax while asleep in those with large necks he said. I'm no doc but it kind of made sense to me. I'm sure it's not nearly that simple but as age creeps up and muscle tone becomes less - it might just be.
PS - I didn't have sleep apnea enough for a C Pap machine.

[John Janecek]

Rip,

Between here and Andy's section I thought here might be best.

Does training the neck with weighted resistance need to be performed differently than other training?

Is there a distinction to be made between types of neck movements, e.g. flexion/extension, rotation, protraction/retraction and how they should be programmed for incremental overloading? Does the nature of the cervical spine and how it articulates warrant specific programming considerations apart from how one would train any other movement?

How quickly can the actual joint tissues adapt to incremental overloading? And how does the anatomy of the neck and head dictate how one should do a movement, i.e. what should be avoided?

We use to do alot of aux neck work (weights, machines, manual resistance etc) with football when I first started in 1990 and I never really saw a difference. You get a ton of work on your traps from all the pulling (DL and olympic type stuff) which gets the muscles in your neck pretty strong. That's what I have athletes do now. Neck injuries still occasionally happen but I think alot of it also decreased when we quit coaching them to use their head for tackling.

[tfranc]

If isometric stabilization is the function of the neck muscles, then exercises which require neck stability -- either directly, like the deadlift, bench, and press, or indirectly, like the squat -- work the neck muscles. If you are a football lineman who uses his helmet as a weapon, it makes sense to do extra neck work. If you are a lifter, your neck will grow accidentally.

What if you're beyond the novice LP phase and you just want a stupidly huge neck?

[Tiedemies]

How bout them shrugs? Works the trapzZz nicely and you can use more weights than even deadlift, so wouldn't shrug be good?

I do shrugs as an assistance once a week because it just feels so damn good. It's more exercise than training, but I've been doing LP on it and it is now 25% above my Deadlift. Since starting on it in July, I've had to go up two collar sizes.