Building Neck Muscles is a very important part of bodybuilding. In addition, if you play sports such as wrestling, soccer, or football you will need a strong neck.

Before you can start building the neck muscles, you need to know what the muscles are and what they do to support the neck. There are four main muscle groups that control the neck. They are…

• Rotators
• Flexors
• Lateral Flexors
• Extensors

Rotators help rotates the neck from the left side to the right side.

Flexors are the muscles that help moves the neck down toward the chest.

Lateral Flexors are the muscles that help move the neck side to side, as if you were trying to touch your ear to your shoulder.

Extensors are the muscles that help moves the neck backward, as if you were trying to look at the sky.

One of the best way to build all of these muscles is to use a neck muscle building machine that is specifically designed to target each of these muscle groups. A great machine that builds all these muscles is the four way neck machine. It hits the front, back, right and left of the neck. You can adjust the weight on the machine to get a good workout.

If you do not have the money to buy such a machine and your local gym does not have one, then there are other workouts that will target the muscles in the neck.

Exercising the Neck with Free Weights

Note… to avoid neck injuries, when doing the following exercises for the first few times, start with a light weight or even no weight to get your neck muscle used to the movement of these exercises. By doing this, you can work up to the right poundage that will give your neck muscles the maximum workout without injuries.

Exercising the Flexors

The first one will target the flexors muscles. You will have to lay face up on a bench of some sort with your head hanging over the edge. Next, place a towel or something soft on top of your forehead. Then place a weight on top of your forehead, that your neck can handle. You will have to slowly lower your neck downward and then slowly raise the neck up, using the weight on the forehead as resistance.

Extensors Workout

You can do the same exercise for the extensors. All you have to do is lay on your stomach on a bench and place the towel on the back of your head, with the weight on it. Hold the weight in place with your hands and slowly raise and lower your head over the edge of the bench.

Lateral Flexors Exercise

To work the lateral flexors, lay on a bench on your side. Place the towel or something soft on the side of your neck. Then place a weight you can handle on the towel and hold it in place as you lower and raise your head from the side. You can work both the right and left side of the neck.

Work Your Traps To Bring Attention To Your Neck

Another way to make your neck look huge is to target those traps. Some good exercises to work the traps are…

• Shrugs
• Deadlifts
• Upright Rowing and
• Overhead Press.

A good method of training the traps is to start with a heavy weight on any of the previous exercises and every set after, lessen the weight by 10 to 20 pounds. This is called descending sets and it really pushes the trap muscles past the point of failure. Which means you will build muscle mass really fast.

Read my article Weight Training Techniques for more information on descending sets and other techniques.

The Biceps, Triceps and the Abs sometimes get overlooked at the gym. They are over shadowed by the larger muscles groups like the Chest or Back.

Biceps

The biceps are muscles that most people think if you do a simple curl, then you are done. This is not the case at all. You must really push the muscle until you feel that pump sensation in the bicep. To get to that point, you will have to fatigue the muscle with a series of different exercises that is designed to push the muscle past the point of failure. Only then will you gain muscle mass in the bicep. Some exercises for this muscle include…

• Standing Dumbbell Curl
• Standing Barbell Curl
• Preacher Curl
• Incline Dumbbell Curl
• Dumbbell Concentration Curl
• Barbell concentration Curl

All these exercises are great for pushing the bicep muscle to the max. But in order to push the muscle past the point of failure, you need to have the right technique to do so.

The best technique for the biceps is called Descending Sets. This is where you start out with a fairly heavy weight, one you can do about 4 to 6 full reps until you can not do any more full reps without cheating. Then, strip 10 pounds off the bar and without any rest continue. Keep doing this pattern until you have about 5 to 10 pounds left on the bar. At this point, those last 5 to 10 pounds will feel just as heavy as your maximum weight you started with. At the end of your last set, do quarter pumps (burns) when you can not do any more full reps. This will push the muscle even more past the point of failure and you will really feel the blood rush to the muscle. A quarter pump is doing only a quarter of the rep. Do these quarter pumps until you can not hang on the bar any longer. Biceps are great to do right after you have just finish any workout that involves your back muscles.

Triceps

The triceps are actually a larger muscle then the biceps. So, if you are looking for that large arm appearance, don’t only focus on the biceps, hit the triceps as well.

One of the best triceps exercises are the pulley pull downs. It stresses the entire tricep area and you can change the weight really quick when you do your Descending Set technique. Both the biceps and the triceps respond really well to the Descending Set routine.

Another great tricep exercise that really works the entire triceps are the Dumbbell Kickbacks. If you do not have any pulley systems, the kickbacks are a great alternative.

1. Simply grab a dumbbell and lean your body forward until your torso is parallel to the ground.
2. From this position, have your arm straight with your body, from the elbow to the shoulder. Having the elbow as the mobile pivot, start out by having your arm hang down naturally from your elbow to your hand.
3. Then using only your tricep muscle, straighten your arm backwards until the entire arm is parallel to the ground.
4. Then slowly lower the weight until it is back at the starting position.

The triceps exercises are great right after you have completed any chest exercise.

Abs

Lastly, the Abdominals are the most neglected muscle group when people workout. Having a strong set of abs will help you in stabilizing your body in other exercises. The abs are one of those muscles that you can do everyday. I like to work the abs after every exercise at the end of the day to finish up my routine. As you may already know, you should limit your time at the gym to under an hour. If you workout more then an hour, you will not get the best results from the growth of your muscles. Therefore, I like to spend the last 15 minutes with a simple ab routine. It acts as a cool down in my routine, and since you can work them out everyday, I never do the same ab exercises I did the day before. It help to confuse the muscles when you do different exercises everyday.

There are Three main Ab Exercises that everyone should do. The first one is call a Crunch. This will engage your upper abs. If you incorporate a twisting motion with the crunch, you will also engage the upper Intercostal Muscles.

The second exercise is called Bicycles. This will engage the middle of your core. If you do a crunch twist with the bicycles, you will workout the Middle and Intercostal Muscles.

The last exercise is called the Leg Raise. This will build the lower part of your abs. If you do a twist crunch with the leg raise, you will work the Lower Abs and External Obliques.

Keep in mind that when building your abs ~ you will not reduce your waistline anymore than any other type of exercise. Your body will burn the fat all over and not just where you are exercising. The best way to lose fat around your waist is the combination of interval training (all parts of your body) and calorie restriction of your diet.