Thursday, December 11, 2008

The Best Weight Lifting Exercises For Your Neck

By Westy

When you look at a bodybuilder who has been working out for some time and someone who has not, there are some noticeable differences. The bodybuilder who has been gaining mass, but not a lot of mass will have a much more developed neck than someone who has not. When you have strong neck muscles, you will be preventing some of the injuries that can occur from a weak neck. This will help when you are doing some of the exercises in your workout routine.

One exercise that is very common to improve the muscles in the neck is the shrug. There are some variations that can be used, but it is actually a very simple exercise. Just shrug your shoulders.

It is possible to do the shrug using dumbbells or a barbell. You might be surprised at how much weight you can actually lift with the shrug. The exercise has a very short range of motion and can be done very simply. Just hold the weight near to your waist and shrug your shoulders. One of the important factors in this exercise is the amount of control that you use to complete the exercise. Make sure that you shrug slowly up and down.

You might be surprised at the amount of strength you can acquire from doing this type of exercise. You should find your ideal repetition between five and seven. You should always warm up before you do any type of exercise. You don't want to injure the neck muscles. Start off with a lesser amount of weight until you determine what your best repetition and weight is.

There's another exercise you could try if you've been developing your neck for a while and you want more strength and definition.

It's called the Weighted Neck Flexion and it goes like this:

1. Wrap up your weight in a towel.

2. Lay back on the bench with the head off the end of the bench.

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

4. lift your body in a situp style movement using your neck muscles till your chin touches your chest

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

6. Keep going until you are finished.

This can be done in the reverse style too when you're 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.

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