Exercise Tips for Achieving a Strong Neck

August 21, 2012 by admin
Filed under Exercise Tips

Article by Mike Hardens

Exercise Tips for Achieving a Strong Neck – Health – Fitness

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There are definitely great benefits to performing exercises that focus on your neck. Your neck is sometimes referred to as your ‘second-core’, obviously connecting your head to your body, it has to support a lot of weight and head movements throughout the day. With such a pivotal role in your body, its surprising how often this body part is overlooked when it comes to exercise and fitness. Performing some basic exercises for your neck muscles can help to improve your overall appearance as well as provide improved posture and body alignment. And as a side bonus, girls tend to find guys with thicker necks more attractive, as it is a sign of health, strength, and vitality.

Your neck is composed of 4 main muscles, they are called the trapezius, levator scapulae, splenius and sternocleidomastoid. The names are hard to remember, but the ones that have the biggest impact on your appearance are the trapezius, also known as ‘traps’. These are the muscles in the back of your neck that extend and make up the gap between you neck and shoulders. Strong traps are one of the fastest ways for a man to appear musuclar, luckily they are a pretty simple muscle to workout!

There are some simple stretches you can perform daily that will help relieve tension in your neck as well as providing a warm up to any neck muscle exercises you might perform. They are performed best while sitting down and are good to do while sitting in your office chair, waiting on a train, or simply sitting on your couch. Start off by tilting your head forward slightly while bringing your chin down to your chest, hold for 20-30 seconds. The longer you hold it, the more you will start to feel the stretch get more intense in the back of your neck. Next, tilt your head back while keeping your mouth closed (to help stretch your front neck muscles even more), hold for 20-30 seconds. Then tilt you head over to one of your shoulders, making sure to not bring your shoulder up to your ear, hold for 20-30 seconds and then repeat to the other side. Once you have done each of these exercises twice, then roll your read around in a big circular motion a few times in both directions.

Now you are ready to do some exercises for neck muscles. It is best to make use of some type of neck exercise equipment, and for these purposes, dumbbells are the perfect fit. The easiest and most effective movement for your traps are shrugs. You can perform shrugs by simply grabbing a pair of dumbbells. With the dumbbells down by your side, bring your shoulders up towards your ears without bending your arms, at the top of the movement briefly pause for a second and then let them back down, repeat for 8-12 reps and do 4 sets. You can also ‘roll’ your shoulders forward or backwards while bringing them up to your ears if that is more comfortable for you.

Forms of Neck Exercise EquipmentThere are other types of neck exercise equipment you can use as well. A wrap around neck stengthener wraps around the top of your head, similar to a headband except it is weighted and typically weights around 5 lbs. To use the device, you simply put it on top of your head on and do stuff around your house, or slowly perform the stretching movements described above, and while 5 lbs doesn’t seem like much, if you were to wear it for about 15 minutes a day, you would really start to notice a difference!

The last piece of neck exercise equipment is the head harness.

Now we don’t really like this piece of equipment as it looks like a medieval torture device, however, they can be very effective. Boxers use this as a neck muscle exercise because it really helps them be able to absorb all the neck snapping motions that occur when getting jabbed in the face. So unless you are a boxer or serious bodybuilder, we say just stick with some basic dumbbell or barbell shrugs or get one of the neck strengtheners.

If you currently do no exercises for neck, we recommend at least doing the stretches recommend above and this will at a minimum serve to help prevent neck injury and stiffness, as well as help you feel more relaxed through the day. But try to incorporate a neck muscle exercise in your workout routine using one of the different types of neck exercise equipment and you’ll develop a much stronger and attractive looking neck!

About the Author

At the exercise equipment fanatic, you can find great reviews on the top fitness equipment online. To read other workout and exercise articles ranging from jumping rope to dumbbell workouts please visit our site.

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Mike Hardens

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