What is the best way to build a bigger and stronger neck? In my regular training for neck strength, I prefer numerous variations of the wrestler’s bridge – which can be found on my YouTube channel or here on the website.
However, there is another exercise which is very effective for developing neck muscles in case someone wants to avoid bridging for one reason or another.
All you need is a weight plate (I use 25 lbs one) and some sort of a pad to protect your face from the plate. For building muscle mass on your neck, you’d want to do a higher number of reps.
To prevent injuries make sure to take it easy and avoid pushing the limits. Most people avoid these exercises due to the delicateness of neck, but if you don’t train those muscles your neck will remain fragile.
To do this exercise, get on a bench, put the pad over your head and place the weight plate on the top of your forehead. Hold on to the plate with your hands. Check out pictures below or the video above for more variations.
Variation 1
Position 1
Position 2
Variation 2
Position 1
Position 2
Variation 3
Position 1
Position 2
You don’t have to start with 25 pounds plate – just find out what works for you and keep the reps in the 10-25 range. It’s a fairly simple exercise which doesn’t require a whole lot of equipment, you just need something to lay on, a weight plate and a pad, so why not give it a try?
Comments
Thanks Logan, i need to strengthen my neck so these tips come handy! 🙂
Good stuff, Logan… I’ve been doing these Neck lifts with weight plates on my head for over 2 years now—I actually use this Neck Strengthening exercise as a warm-up and cool-down as well with very light weigths at the beginning or end of my Neck Training regime… It’s an awesome way to warm up and loosen up the Neck… At least, in my Ferocious opinion it is, it works very well for me!
Also, that being said, I noticed that you train your neck in an fast-paced manner over here with this exercise… So my question = Do you always train it in a fast-paced manner or do you switch it up and train it with very slow, to normal speed manner?!
All-in-all, definitely a damn good beginner exercise which can be trained up to insane levels as wel… But the way I, personally see it, this exercise is in NO way, shape or form on the same level as the Wrestlers Bridge, Front Bridge, Headstand (WITHOUT the Arms) and Hanging from a rope (WITHOUT choking to death obviously)… But it’s still an neck exercise that I train on a regular basis and thus it gets my respect!