Neck muscles

[Wolverine]

Hello Everyone,

Is there any good exercise to build neck muscles quickly? None of the exercises I am doing (5x5 Stronglifts or otherwise) seem to impact the muscularity/girth of my neck. My main problem is that my thorax cartilage sticks out quite a bit in the front ...

Help is greatly appreciated!

-- Wolverine

[CaptainJ]

I have a good exercise:

Get some food and shove it down your throat.

Seriously though, I've found the only way to increase the size of my neck was to eat more. Unless someone finds a way of doing neck curls.

[ricepower]

Simply stressing your body hard in compound lifts like squats should beef up your neck plenty enough. In the few months ive been doing this my face/jaw has even got squarer & more muscly.

[Wolverine]

Ricepower, what age are you? I am 25, so I doubt the bones in the face (faceplates) or jawbones will change much.

Am I making sense?

Thanks!

[Leot]

Learn how to power clean and sub out inverted rows. This will build your traps more than regular SL5x5.

http://www.exrx.net/Lists/ExList/NeckWt ... hor1940364 This is a bit more specific to the other neck muscles, although I don't think these muscles are actually useful for anything other than moving your head around.

[Wolverine]

Leot: How does power clean help the neck? (Just curious, because I thought it was primarily a glute, back, quad exercise).

Also, what does "sub out inverted rows" mean?

Thanks =)

[dylanamus]

Leot means once you know how to power clean, replace inverted rows with them. A properly executed power clean deeply involves the traps during the first half of the lift... They're like explosive shrugs.

[ricepower]

Leot means once you know how to power clean, replace inverted rows with them. A properly executed power clean deeply involves the traps during the first half of the lift... They're like explosive shrugs.

Mehdi recommends you only move on to power cleans once you can hang clean your BW. Thats pretty damn tough, will take a while! But ive started the process.

BTW I am 24, I am pretty sure the squarer mmore masculine look around my face & neck since doing SL 5x5 is due to increased muscle & testosterone. It looks like I have much less fat in my cheeks and more muscle in my jaw & neck simply from intense contractions during squats & presses.

[Mehdi]

Heavy squats & deadlifts will increase your neck size. You can see how a person lifts by looking at his neck size. Someone who only benches/curls always has skinny neck.

[muddy]

Something we did in wrestling explicitly for neck strength was neck bridges. We also did daily isometric work as well in all four directions (forward, back, left, right). I've no idea if these are considered out of fashion now, but they certainly did do the job, as a strong neck is essential in wrestling. Be careful and sensible about it, especially if you do anything other than isometrics or bridging from your back. It would be easy to do something pretty stupid with this...

[Wolverine]

Thanks everyone for replying to my queries. A truly wonderful community this is. I will continue to up weights on the 5x5 program and increase my diet. I think that should be good enough, rather than doing stupid isolation exercises ...

-- Wolverine.

[deadlift]

yea we did neck bridges. something else i read in my judo book was for u 2 lay on your back and have someone put there hand on your forehead and then u curl your neck up like a neck curl.

[Dada]

We did neck bridges in HS wrestling too and they work great. Although, some say they can be dangerous. I've seen people use a weighted neck harness also (looks kind of dumb though). 4 way isometrics are an option but not as effective as bridging IMO.

Yes, deadlifts and cleans will help to an extent but I think some people may need the additional neck work. I have been thinking of adding some bridges myself because after viewing these back pics of myself, I think my neck is too skinny. I do plenty of cleans and deadlifts already.

http://pictures.sprintpcs.com/share.do? ... =RETRIEVED

[ricepower]

Yes, deadlifts and cleans will help to an extent but I think some people may need the additional neck work. I have been thinking of adding some bridges myself because after viewing these back pics of myself, I think my neck is too skinny. I do plenty of cleans and deadlifts already.

http://pictures.sprintpcs.com/share.do? ... =RETRIEVED

I looked at your pics. You have a massively wide powerful looking upperbody thanks to lats, shoulders etc and I would expect you to have a huge neck & trap area. But it makes no sense, its like its missing?

I am a small guy (ive gone from 64-68kg) my upper body & arms have always been scrawny and its been a slow process trying to get that to change. However, as soon as I started doing cleans (just hang cleans) I pretty much instantly started getting bulging traps. My BF level isnt very low yet you can clearly see two distinct large bulging muscles behind my neck. I would expect someone of your size doing big deadlifts & cleans would have a huge bulging neck/trap area. I just dont get it. Are you sure you are getting the explosive shrug part of a powerclean correct?

[Sam277]

rather than doing stupid isolation exercises ...

There is nothing wrong with doing some isolation exercises on top of your compound lifts. If you want a bigger neck then train it. Just like if you wanted bigger biceps, you'd train them directly, even if it's just doing a couple of sets at the end of your workout.