How & Why to Build a Strong Neck | Jeff Cavaliere & Dr. Andrew Huberman

Neck Training For Men & Women

00:00neck training for men and women. I think men probably would be okay with having a most of them would be like, "Oh, cool. I'll get a slightly bigger neck." Women probably want to avoid that. Is there is there a way that women or men, but tends to be women who want to have a, you know, great posture, a a strong neck, but they want to maintain that kind of, you know, like elegant neck.

00:19They don't want a thicker neck. Is there a way that they can strengthen the neck muscles and achieve that without thickening the neck? Yeah, I I think that women would be less resistant to the idea of having a stronger neck. I think as long as we weren't talking about building massive traps along with it, right?

00:37And I think that they think neck and traps cuz they do feed into each other. The reason why men who train their neck tend to have a a better or or much thicker look to their neck better for men is that they're also in conjunction likely training their traps either directly or indirectly through some of the other movements they're doing in in a heavy way.

00:58Women who tend to train their neck directly and not focused on building their traps at the same time, they're just going to have a stronger neck because they're not necessarily the biggest muscles in here that that grow substantially. And again, when you look at the proportional growth in muscles from men and women, there's already a difference in how big these muscles will grow, male versus female.

01:19But now, in an area where the where the the muscles themselves don't grow to astronomically large proportions, you really aren't going to get that much size in the neck. And I think women are chronically undertrained when it comes to the neck.

01:33I I can't tell you how often that you'll prescribe some kind of an ab routine. And I'm not even thinking about the repercussions on the neck cuz for me it's like it's it's no strain at all. But a lot of people will complain and most often it's women that just doing the crunch cuz you know I don't want them holding on to their neck and cranking on their neck during a crunch.

01:53They'll say my my neck is hurting. I can't do that. I can't do that routine. It's it's only hurting because of fatigue not because there their neck is being held in one position and their fingers are just basically touching back there to just keep them away from cranking.

02:06And it's also that's how you want them people doing crunches. Not cranking, not pushing the Yeah. So just touching the back of their head very much. Touching the back of your head lightly. And you know what you're getting there also is a little extra weight.

02:14The weight of your arms back there is going to provide a little bit of extra resistance on a basic crunch. But it's also leaving the neck unsupported cuz so often people are used to holding the entire weight of their head. And then what happens is they start to fatigue and their ab here we go again.

02:29What is the body's natural compensation? They know that the eyes have to get up when they're doing a crunch. The eyes have to raise up. So what do they do? They just pull on the head and the eyes come up and they're not doing any more work for their abs, but they've gotten to where they thought they were supposed to be.

02:41Natural compensation gone wrong. That's not what we want to do. So, when women are encouraged to do it quote unquote right and don't pull on your neck, they don't have the strength in their anterior neck to do that. So, doing this neck series that you were referring to is a is a great way to strengthen the neck.

02:57And again, depending on how much weight you use, you could just use a five or 10 pound plate and have plenty of of of overload there to create a stronger neck without a lot of hypertrophy. And and for those that aren't aware, the the the series is simply taking a plate.

03:12Let's

Neck Series Exercise Protocol

03:15just say we start really light. We take a 5 lb plate. We wrap it in a towel, nice cushy towel, so it's not uncomfortable at all. You lay on a bench, and you're going to go basically in four different directions. You're going to rotate your body's position on that bench in four different ways.

03:27to work the extensors, the flexors, and then the lateral neck muscles on both left and right sides. So, all you have to do is, let's say you're starting on your back. You lay on your back, head is off the edge of the bench, that nice cushy towel with the plate inside of it is put up on top of your forehead.

03:45You allow yourself to to lean your head back, but as you come up, you want to also pull your chin down, right? Because you're not just trying to like overextend or hyper extend your your neck at any point. You want to you the stability we talked about before whether it be the hip screwing in or the shoulder screw the stability you get here is the retraction of the chin that provides the stability to the neck.

04:06So you have the retraction of the chin which is just pulling it straight back. It's going to feel like it moves only about a/ an inch or so. That's the position there. And then you you pull your head back up to neutral again. You you flex your neck until you're back to neutral again.

04:20You do that 12 repetitions. however many you know sub fatigue here but just enough to to cause some some fatigue. Turn on to your stomach at that point if you like. Put the weight on the back of your head and then do the same thing. Retract first.

04:36Make sure you got the stable neck. Chin closer to your good way to talk about it. And then you basically allow your your head to to sink down forward off the edge of the bench. And then you're going to extend your neck back up again to neutral or in this case a little bit beyond into a little bit of extension.

04:51And then you go to your side and the same deal. You allow your head to just bend a little bit to the laterally like ear towards the shoulder, but you're laying on the bench. You do the same thing. Place the weight on top of the opposite side of your of your head.

05:04And then you're going to lift up against that weight. These are just supposed to be done very slow, very controlled. There's nothing crazy explosive about these. You're just supposed to feel those muscles. And trust me, like if you have not done these, you do one, you start with one round of this and then wait until tomorrow cuz like you don't want to do too much cuz I guarantee you're going to be sore.

05:24Back in the day when I played football, you didn't realize how weak your neck could get in an off seasonason until you put the helmet on for the first time. And just one practice with the helmet on and you know, you're controlling all that extra weight of the helmet dynamically and the neck would be sore for for 2 three days.

05:42we had to accommodate even to the to the weight of the helmet. So with neck training, it's a it's a long slow process. You just start very light, you start submaximal, and you start building up your strength. And then when you talk about a crunch, that's a nothing exercise for maintaining stability and control.

05:59When

Benefits Of A Stronger Neck

06:01you get into situations like you where you have accidents and car accidents, you become not only just resilient, but potentially life-saving, you know, by having a stronger neck. Gosh, if I, you know, could highlight bold and, you know, and and uh underline this and send it out as far as I can that the next stuff, men and women, it's you will be positively amazed at the transformations.

06:23Your pressing lifts will get stronger. Your pulling lifts will get stronger. You get stronger. Aesthetically for guys, you know, I mentioned this in the video yesterday, but I'll say it again, that a lot of guys who work to widen their shoulders, if their neck strength is isn't coming up um proportionally, it looks like they got the wrong head on that body.

06:40It looks crazy, guys. You look you look ridiculous, especially in street clothes. Like, I'm not saying you need a giant neck, but there's there's a proportion thing there that's that's important if you care about that sort of thing. As I say this, I know that most people won't take the time to do it because it looks awkward.

06:56Mhm. It's a tiny play. It's a weird thing to do in a gym, too. You know, it just seems a little weird, but look, it people do a lot of weird stuff in gyms and and uh this is one of the weirder things that the better weird things you can do if you're going to invest some time.

07:08Again, it doesn't take a lot. It really doesn't take a lot to to pay big dividends here because it is an area that's pretty much untrained. Again, we're not talking traps. Traps

Longevity & Postural Health

07:18get a lot of work, but those deep muscles of the neck don't get trained very often at all. Yeah. So much of what you teach is about winning the short game and the long game. And to me, winning the long game is about being able to come in and do the big stuff year after year, decade after decade.

07:33So that, you know, when you're 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, why not, right? I mean, the the experiment of whether people can have great strength and mobility, etc., into their 80s and 90s, with rare exceptions has never actually been done. And that experiment is happening now because resistance training, you know, especially for women, you know, a few years back, like if it wasn't bodybuilders, nobody did.

07:59Now, everyone knows this as part of the longevity game. So, I'm so excited that these, again, what sound like small things are getting out there thanks to you because they really do make a difference. And I believe that in our 80s and 90s and maybe even beyond, people can move right and feel right and be posturally right.

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