Incorporating Neck Workouts into Starting Strength

[mrsneakyz28]

Best way to go about doing this? I'm doing SS, and also currently in the middle of a 12 week strength challenge so I in no way want to divert any of my training from that. But, I have a fucking chicken neck and also poor posture and need to do some neck strengthening exercises.

Bridges, Isometrics, I figure I can do on my off days. I've also seen some other neck building programs but most on BB sites and they involve alot of shrugs and trap workouts. Any ideas on what I should do are appreciated, thanks.

 

[pliftkl]

You don't need special neck exercises. You aren't going to develop your neck disproportionately to the rest of your body. You know the root of your problem, and I'll repost it here from your other thread:

I am small and very lean 6' 145 lbs currently

Once you fix this problem, there will no longer be a "chicken neck" problem. This problem is fixable with squats, food, deadlifts, and sleep. I'd normally insert a GOMAD suggestion here, but I realize from the other post that your poor choice of parents has left you with a milk allergy.

 

[BaliShagSmoke]

^^^^^^^^^

Disagree. I've seen plenty of people with disproportionate neck development.

I'd say that you get plenty of trap work from the deadlifts and powercleans if you are doing the advanced novice program and that if you wanted to, you could buy a neck harness.

 

[pliftkl]

Disagree. I've seen plenty of people with disproportionate neck development.

Sorry, yes this is true in general, as most people don't want to pick up heavy things off the floor. The TS is doing SS, so he is (or should be) already working his neck with deadlifts and power cleans. My point is his problem right now is almost certainly not one of proportion, but of simple size.

 

[flak]

Stick-in-the-mud first questions -- How long have you been lifting? How's your progress? Are you gaining weight? Getting enough rest? Any specific reason you need a bigger, stronger neck, other than aesthetics?

The answers are gonna pretty influential to the advice you get here.

If you're doing the big lifts with fairly low reps, your neck size should increase in proportion with the rest of your upper body, more or less.

Your diet and rest habits are gonna play a big role in any muscle mass gains, obviously.

Jumping ahead --

Assuming you've been training awhile, put on some mass, and have at least one performance-oriented reason for neck growth, here's my advice --

If I were doing SS, I'd probably do neckwork at the end of every deadlift session. Reason -- deads work your neck, might as well do the rest of the neckwork here and get it done for the week.

There have been many good threads on neckwork in S&C/S&P, try the search function for this form, using the search term "neck" and looking for threads with "neck" in the title.

The options for neckwork are fairly limited. If you have access to a 4-way neck machine, give it a try -- a fair number of people here like them, including me.

I also like the flat bench + plate-wrapped-in-a-towel option.

Whatever you do, start light (like 5 or 10 lbs.), and do high-rep sets, 10 to 30 reps. Never do low-rep, heavy neckwork -- that's advice from Carnal Salvation himself, and it makes sense -- too much important stuff is housed in your neck, you don't wanna risk messing it up.

One workout I used to like to do, which might be useful to you -- I called it "the top floor."

Shrugs -- warm ups + working sets (5 x 5 or possibly 3 reps, 8 sets) -- I used a plate-loaded machine for this, but a barbell works fine. Dumbbells are okay if you have access to poundages that are challenging for you.

Rear delt flyes on a pec dec -- warm ups + working sets (3 reps, 8 sets)

Neckwork, flat bench with plate, 4 directions (face up, face down, left ear up, right ear up), warm ups + working sets (10 or 15 or 20 reps per direction, 3 sets)

 

[mrsneakyz28]

Stick-in-the-mud first questions -- How long have you been lifting? How's your progress? Are you gaining weight? Getting enough rest? Any specific reason you need a bigger, stronger neck, other than aesthetics?

The answers are gonna pretty influential to the advice you get here.

If you're doing the big lifts with fairly low reps, your neck size should increase in proportion with the rest of your upper body, more or less.

Your diet and rest habits are gonna play a big role in any muscle mass gains, obviously.

Jumping ahead --

Assuming you've been training awhile, put on some mass, and have at least one performance-oriented reason for neck growth, here's my advice --

If I were doing SS, I'd probably do neckwork at the end of every deadlift session. Reason -- deads work your neck, might as well do the rest of the neckwork here and get it done for the week.

There have been many good threads on neckwork in S&C/S&P, try the search function for this form, using the search term "neck" and looking for threads with "neck" in the title.

The options for neckwork are fairly limited. If you have access to a 4-way neck machine, give it a try -- a fair number of people here like them, including me.

I also like the flat bench + plate-wrapped-in-a-towel option.

Whatever you do, start light (like 5 or 10 lbs.), and do high-rep sets, 10 to 30 reps. Never do low-rep, heavy neckwork -- that's advice from Carnal Salvation himself, and it makes sense -- too much important stuff is housed in your neck, you don't wanna risk messing it up.

One workout I used to like to do, which might be useful to you -- I called it "the top floor."

Shrugs -- warm ups + working sets (5 x 5 or possibly 3 reps, 8 sets) -- I used a plate-loaded machine for this, but a barbell works fine. Dumbbells are okay if you have access to poundages that are challenging for you.

Rear delt flyes on a pec dec -- warm ups + working sets (3 reps, 8 sets)

Neckwork, flat bench with plate, 4 directions (face up, face down, left ear up, right ear up), warm ups + working sets (10 or 15 or 20 reps per direction, 3 sets)

I did starting strength a little over 2 years ago and made nice gains, but I was also boxing/MT and competing BJJ so much of my training was focused on those things. Anyway I had some injuries and stopped training for a long time and lost all the weight I put on.

This time around I have gained 10lbs so far, I was 136 starting the program with pathetically low lifts for the first couple of weeks. My current lifts for the program are

Squat 145
Bench 135
Deadlift 215
OHP 90
Power Clean 115

I am getting enough rest, and have a new diet plan now with more calories so I am finally doing well in that department. I just noticed recently that my neck is pathetic and I guess you could say that I want it to be bigger for asthetic reasons. But I also have had issues with posture and neck pain throughout my life. I may get back into boxing and Muay Thai a little as well so I definitely need to develop my neck a little more for that too. Thanks for the info.

 

[mrsneakyz28]

You don't need special neck exercises. You aren't going to develop your neck disproportionately to the rest of your body. You know the root of your problem, and I'll repost it here from your other thread:



Once you fix this problem, there will no longer be a "chicken neck" problem. This problem is fixable with squats, food, deadlifts, and sleep. I'd normally insert a GOMAD suggestion here, but I realize from the other post that your poor choice of parents has left you with a milk allergy.

My parents played no role in that...I used to eat family sized blocks of cheese as a child, and I attempted something similar to Gomad in highschool despite being lactose intolerant my whole life. I know most people say working through it will make it better but thats a crock, only made shit worse for me. My health and life has improved tenfold since I cut out dairy in its entirety. I can eat 160-200 grams of protein a day with no supplementation or dairy.

 

[grrthetree]

Some extra neck work at the end of a lifting session once or twice a week wouldn't kill you. Neck bridges, neck harness shit, all that good stuff. Do a search for it. I've seen a lot of muay thai guys get a rope or something and attach plates to one end and do neck lifts by holding the other end with your teeth. Give it a try, see what works, but it's an accessory lift so go for like 8-12 rep ranges or more, it's not something you would want to get a 1rm in or do 90% sets.

 

[rckvl]

Get a neck harness and just have at it, higher reps(think up to 30 reps), lower reps(not 1rm type shit though), do them both. Do them at the end of your starting strength sessions or whenever, doesn't really matter.

 

[joshetc]

If you're really 6' and 145 pounds you should just keep lifting and eating.. You're a twig. Gain some weight.

 

[ChinBo37]

damn im 6' and 175 and i feel like a twig

 

[TrainingAdict]

I'll never stop feeling like a twig until I hit 200 lbs.

 

[PWR1982]

My parents played no role in that...I used to eat family sized blocks of cheese as a child, and I attempted something similar to Gomad in highschool despite being lactose intolerant my whole life. I know most people say working through it will make it better but thats a crock, only made shit worse for me. My health and life has improved tenfold since I cut out dairy in its entirety. I can eat 160-200 grams of protein a day with no supplementation or dairy.

Milk isn't some secret steroid or whatever. You can have better food for gaining weight than milk in my opinion, myself I followed a gomad diet for quite some time and I still drink an average of 2 litres a day. Not because I would find it optimal for gaining weight - but it's simple, milk is extremely cheap here, and I was way too lazy to make myself as much food to make up for not drinking milk. It's not that great, but it's sure to work for lazy bastards like me, who would never get such a big caloric surplus for themselves, had they been not drinking the milk.

Lactose intolerance is strange though, I always thought I have lactose intolerance, because when I would drink a big glass of milk I would feel it (yes, on the toilet pretty well too ), but once I got used to drinking 4 litres of milk a day, my body somehow adapted...

One tip though, don't focus on protein. Make sure you just eat a lot to have a big caloric surplus, after a week do some list of what you have been usually eating the week, and see if you got at least 100g of protein. Seriously, if you just eat a LOT, you will quite surely eat enough protein. 6 eggs with bacon for breakfast, 400g (uncooked weight) pasta with pesto lunch, 3kfc twisters for dinner... and voila, you have enough protein that you need , not a great diet I know, but I'm just pointing out that it's more important for you to eat a lot.

 

[ASUThermo]

Join a local wrestling club.

 

[mrsneakyz28]

Milk isn't some secret steroid or whatever. You can have better food for gaining weight than milk in my opinion, myself I followed a gomad diet for quite some time and I still drink an average of 2 litres a day. Not because I would find it optimal for gaining weight - but it's simple, milk is extremely cheap here, and I was way too lazy to make myself as much food to make up for not drinking milk. It's not that great, but it's sure to work for lazy bastards like me, who would never get such a big caloric surplus for themselves, had they been not drinking the milk.

Lactose intolerance is strange though, I always thought I have lactose intolerance, because when I would drink a big glass of milk I would feel it (yes, on the toilet pretty well too ), but once I got used to drinking 4 litres of milk a day, my body somehow adapted...

One tip though, don't focus on protein. Make sure you just eat a lot to have a big caloric surplus, after a week do some list of what you have been usually eating the week, and see if you got at least 100g of protein. Seriously, if you just eat a LOT, you will quite surely eat enough protein. 6 eggs with bacon for breakfast, 400g (uncooked weight) pasta with pesto lunch, 3kfc twisters for dinner... and voila, you have enough protein that you need , not a great diet I know, but I'm just pointing out that it's more important for you to eat a lot.

Here is a sample diet plan I came up with based on my normal eating habits. Now I can't do this every day because I have to work 12 hour shifts some times, but it serves as kind of a guideline.

Breakfast: 2 servings organic oats with 2 cups coconut milk, 4 large eggs, and a banana.

Workout. Post workout shake with oats, banana, coconut milk, and peanut butter.

Lunch: 2 Bison burgers on wheat buns with a whole avocado.

Snack: Peanut butter chocolate chip clif bar, and nut mix (almonds, cranberries, dark chocolate almonds)

Dinner: 10 oz grilled chicken, 2 servings broccoli, spinach or asparagus, 3 servings sweet potato fries.

Snack: 2 PB+J sandwiches on wheat bread.

4800 calories
225 grams protein
500 grams carbs

A realistic average day for me I hit about 3k calories 160g protein and 350-400 grams carbs. The breakfast and snacks are easy for me, lunch and dinner always suffer a little bit when I'm working.

 

[pliftkl]

A realistic average day for me I hit about 3k calories 160g protein and 350-400 grams carbs. The breakfast and snacks are easy for me, lunch and dinner always suffer a little bit when I'm working.

Is this an average day or an average work day that you are referring to?

The diet you posted is great if you can do it. Plenty of calories, and you'll grow. I'm assuming since you do 12 hour shifts that you work 4 days a week or a 4/3 split. If your average over the whole week drops to 3000 calories a day, then that would imply that on your working day you are only getting 1200 calories a day. That would be problematic for someone trying to gain as you'll be in a significant caloric deficit on those days. If you can get 3000 calories a day on your working days, then your daily average jumps up to about 3900 calories a day, which probably puts you back on a surplus of 5000+ calories per week.

 

[mrsneakyz28]

Is this an average day or an average work day that you are referring to?

The diet you posted is great if you can do it. Plenty of calories, and you'll grow. I'm assuming since you do 12 hour shifts that you work 4 days a week or a 4/3 split. If your average over the whole week drops to 3000 calories a day, then that would imply that on your working day you are only getting 1200 calories a day. That would be problematic for someone trying to gain as you'll be in a significant caloric deficit on those days. If you can get 3000 calories a day on your working days, then your daily average jumps up to about 3900 calories a day, which probably puts you back on a surplus of 5000+ calories per week.

Yes I do a 4/3 split, and 3k is my average for a work day. I'm working right now its 5pm and ive already eaten 2000 calories.

 

[ShadowNINku]

this:
Neckwork, flat bench with plate, 4 directions (face up, face down, left ear up, right ear up), warm ups + working sets (10 or 15 or 20 reps per direction, 3 sets)

or maybe split up the neck work face up and face down one day and side to side on the next workout day

big arms and a small neck makes people look like pussies...what good is having big arms if your neck looks like it can be pushed and pulled by a 6y.o. girl

 

[eastNYgoon138]

heavy shrugs + steak

 

[KnightTemplar]

I have to admit, I'm lucky in this respect: my neck is one of my few bodyparts that I find easy to grow. And since I've started on a modified SS Program, with Deadlifts every Friday, my neck and traps have gotten bigger.