A strong neck is a good thing, right? The muscle frame shields your vertebrae from harm. It matters in sport and in everyday life.
Thinking this way, beginners start training their neck with a “wrestler’s bridge” or by hanging a heavy kettlebell from a helmet strap.
Mike Tyson once admitted he ruined his neck with daily bridges, doing a crazy number of reps for 20–30 minutes at a time. And this with a bull-thick neck measuring 50+ cm around!
“How should I train my neck?” I asked a sports rehab specialist. “You don’t,” he surprised me. “What’s the main muscle of the neck?”, now he turned the tables. “Probably the traps,” I guessed. “Right. And what fires the traps best?” he pressed. “Any kind of pulling with the arms!” I lit up. “Yes. That's plenty,” he sealed it, then added: “And if you really need it for sport, go isometric with a band.”
A beginner tries to copy free-style wrestlers or tunes in to fitness influencers, whose goal is to grab attention with things that are exotic, freakish, or shiny new.
But the person you should ask is the expert who has no time for social media because he has a line of athletes on crutches waiting for him. From statistics, patterns emerge. And patterns are stubborn things.
Takeaway: everyone needs a strong neck. But not at any price.
Yours sincerely,
-Alexander
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