Youtube comments often make me laugh.

In this case, it came on the Amazing Feats of Strength Video, which you can watch here.

The comment was referring to the weighted wrestler’s bridge concrete break that begins the video, with strongman Bud Jeffries swinging the sledgehammer.

To that, Dan V said…

“f*** me that guy at the start must of had horrible jarring on his neck”

Nope!

If that had actually been jarring on the neck, I wouldn’t have done it. Not that day…or the many other times I’ve done that feat.

People are often scared of training their neck for fear of hurting it. By that line of thinking, you shouldn’t train your body at all because you might hurt it!

Not good. A more responsible way to think is this:

• The neck would suck to have injured.
• Therefore, it would be wise to train it smartly to help avoid injury.

The Wrestler’s Bridge, not just for wrestlers…

And one of my favorite ways of training the neck, which brings tremendous benefit is through the wrestler’s bridge.

On this page for my old-school Advanced Bridging Course, where I walk you through every possible variation of this and the gymnastic bridge version, I tell the story of one such incident where neck training saved my ass.

Looking back, I know for sure that I was concussed from that accident. It was just a few months ago when I was listening to an interview about what to do when brain damage occurs, that I made a connection I had not identified in years.

Three times over the next two nights I went sleepwalking!

And that was from the concussion…not just from drinking and being in Pamplona for the running of the bulls.

So it was pretty bad…

And I think it would have been WAY worse if I hadn’t built up my neck strength before that incident. Like hospitalized bad.

Now you may never want to break concrete on top of your bridge, that’s okay.

(And that’s just physics that the concrete will absorb the impact so that it doesn’t jar the neck. It just looks dangerous, painful and thus makes a good strongman show stunt.)

But I would advise doing some wrestler’s bridging.

And even if you decide the wrestler’s bridge isn’t the right approach for you, I would highly recommend some neck strengthening exercises of some sort.

It will build a strong neck that will be there if you need it.