Sunday, January 11, 2009

Weight Lifting Exercises For Your Neck

By Westy

It is very noticeable when you see a bodybuilder who has developed the muscles in their neck. The appearance of well developed neck muscles is one of the ways that you can determine who has been working on their body for a while and who has not. You will also be doing something to prevent any injuries that could occur from your other exercises.

The shrug is the most common exercise that you can use to improve the muscles in your neck. There are variations on the shrug that you can use to help give the exercise a little more intensity, but it is a very simple exercise to perform.

You can do the shrug using dumbells, or a barbell. And surprisingly you can often lift a fair bit of weight doing this exercise too. It's only got a short range of motion so you don't have to really do all that much work. It's easy to do the shrug, just grab the weight, hold near your waist and shrug your shoulders like you don't give a damn. Lift them, up, then down slowly. The control of this exercise is important.

You can develop loads of strength by working with your ideal weight rep range between about 5-7. But be careful. You should make sure you're well warmed up before you start. Even before you attempt to find out what your best rep range is, you should do a couple of workouts using less weight. This is because the neck is a horrible place to get an injury. Just be careful if you've not done much neck work before. Injury in this area is the last thing you need.

There are some other exercises that you can add after you have begun to develop the muscles in the neck.

One of these exercises is called the neck flexion.

1. Take your weight plate and wrap it up in a towel.

2. Lay on a bench with your head sticking out over the end (this is the professional description! haha)

3. Place the plate on the forehead and support it with your hands.

4. Lift your body as though you are doing a situp and touch your chin to the chest.

5. Bring your body back down to your original position.

6. Repeat until you're done.

Do this exercise in reverse on your stomach.

There are other exercises that can be used to improve the strength of your neck. Put your hands on one side of your head and push your head in the other direction. You will be using your own body to perform the exercise and not risking injury with weights. This is the ideal way to start the exercises for your neck. It is important that you do not do neck exercises like the neck bridge unless you have been working out for some time and already have a strong neck. This type of exercise is most often done by those that are into wrestling.

The neck is a small part of your upper body workout. When you are working on the strength of your upper body you should make sure to include your neck in the workout. You will find an improvement in your upper body workout when you include the neck muscles in your program. - 16463

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