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Kraken
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Sean Williams
, A Most Viewed Writer Health, Exercise, Fitness, Weight Loss.
Answered 1 year ago· Upvoted by
James Dean
, Former pro natural bodybuilder with two state championships · Author has 950 answers and 9M answer views
What are the best ways to develop the muscles of the neck?
First off, my resume:
I never used to directly train my neck muscles. until I was around 50 years old his is what my neck looked like:
It wasn’t a scrawny neck, but it didn’t turn any heads, except my own.
Then i started having pain in my left shoulder, arm and hand right down to my fingers and thumb. I found out I have arthritis putting pressure on the nerves that emanate from that side of my neck, going down to my finger tips.
Surgery or more and more pain medication were my two options from the doctors.
I decided to try another option. I’d start directly training my neck to improve both strength and flexibility, as much as possible. If it made things worse, I’d quit and schedule the surgery. If not, well, that would be great.
It’s been several years now. I train my neck 1–2 times per week for about 1/2 hour. It’s not only significantly more developed now, around 20”, it doesn’t hurt constantly. And things that used to really hurt, jolts, bumping my head on things, roller coasters, etc., aren’t so bad now.
So a believer in building stronger and thicker neck muscles to protect the spine and nerves of the neck.
What I do:
My primarily exercise is face up laying down head raises with a weight propped on my forehead. I do these in 3 directions. I go up to the center, down, up and rotate to one side, down, up to the center, down, up and rotate to the other side.
I also do side raises by laying across a bench sideways and propping a weight on the side of my head.
And I work the rear of my neck with a head weight harness.
I always do some work for my traps while I’m doing my neck exercises. That’s almost always shrugs with dumbbells. Sometimes I do upright rows with dumbbells.
The neck is like any other muscle. Work it and eat quality food and it will respond by getting stronger and bigger.
I remember a guy I went through technical training schools with in the Air Force back in 1984, Alva Gerstle. He had a huge neck. He always told anyone who asked that his neck saved his life in a car accident and probably will again some day. I believe him.
One last picture. I kinda laid off some on my neck training a couple years ago for a while. I was training at the gym and it was always crowded and took way to long to do my workout, constantly waiting for equipment to come available. I switched to working out at home and didn’t immediately restart my neck exercises. Then I saw this guy and got re-inspired:
I decided that a Thanos neck was worth the work.
And I think I’m getting there! Point is, find what inspires you, even if it’s a comic book bad guy, and get to work. This stuff requires long term dedication.
