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.

Henry Chervenka