Neck Exercises that KILL Your Neck (DO THESE INSTEAD!!) — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00What's up, guys?
2. 0:04Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.com.
3. 0:08Today we're talking all about the neck and how to build a bigger one, safely.
4. 0:13See there's a lot of options out there when it comes to training your neck, but only a
5. 0:16few of them are actually going to help you train them safely.
6. 0:19See if you can spot – in these exercises – some of the things that you might have
7. 0:22been doing in the past, because people have told you to do these.
8. 0:25Maybe they've been telling you to do this neck bridging on your back like this.
9. 0:30Maybe even lean forward and do them like this.
10. 0:33The idea is, this series will do two things for you.
11. 0:36Number one: it will help you to build a huge-ass, thick neck.
12. 0:41Number two: it's going to help you build a huge-ass pile of shit for vertebrae that's
13. 0:46left over when you're done doing those.
14. 0:48You see, it's not all about the muscles, guys.
15. 0:49Especially if you're watching this channel.
16. 0:51It's about doing what you do so that you can have some longevity in the process.
17. 0:55I'm going to break out Raymond here to show you exactly why, because when you look at
18. 0:58those exercises that I've showed you, we're not just talking about being able to build
19. 1:03strength in the neck.
20. 1:04We're talking about the position you're putting yourself in, in the process of trying to do
21. 1:08that and you are doing some major damage to the structural integrity of your spine.
22. 1:13Remember this, you only get one of these in your lifetime.
23. 1:17Only one.
24. 1:18So you'd better protect it.
25. 1:19What we're looking at is, we get a lot of compression through all of those because this
26. 1:22is a closed-chain exercise.
27. 1:24Normally, closed-chain exercises are fantastic.
28. 1:26They're exactly what you want to do.
29. 1:29Exactly how you want to train.
30. 1:30Especially if you want to train like an athlete, but when it comes to the neck you do not want
31. 1:33to train that way because you're introducing all this compression here through the spine.
32. 1:37Now look at what's going on here.
33. 1:38All these little yellow things here exiting the sides of the vertebrae are your nerve
34. 1:42roots and they exit between the level of the two vertebrae that they're named after.
35. 1:46So if you're talking about a C5-6, it's between the levels of C5 and C6.
36. 1:50If you're looking at a C6-7 it's between the levels of C6 and C7.
37. 1:54Now each one of these nerve roots is going to control the actions down a specific distribution
38. 2:01of your arm.
39. 2:02So you can have a C6-7, which is being controlled more by the tricep strength down that arm,
40. 2:06motor wise.
41. 2:07You're going to also have sensory commands as well, but you're going to have a C5-6 that's
42. 2:11going to come down the deltoid into the bicep.
43. 2:14The fact is, until you get compression on one of these nerves, until this little nerve
44. 2:18right here is compressed by a vertebrae, or something in the area you won't feel anything.
45. 2:24You might feel a little bit of crunching in the neck, but you're not going to feel pain,
46. 2:27or weakness down the arm.
47. 2:28It's the moment that you get this impingement in connection with one of these nerve roots.
48. 2:33Just like that you can go from 0 to 60 in terms of discomfort, and weakness.
49. 2:36Now, when you do those other exercises you're compressing the spine down, pushing these
50. 2:41bones into each other.
51. 2:42Then I have to in and either rotate side to side, or I do the gapping side to side that
52. 2:47way, or I'm pushing down and moving my neck forward and back.
53. 2:50The idea is that these two bones are now pressing together and they're grinding.
54. 2:54When we get bone on bone, the response to your body, or by your body, to that is to
55. 2:59try to fortify the area a little bit.
56. 3:01What it does, unfortunately, is it usually lays down more bone called "bone spurs", or
57. 3:05"osteophytes".
58. 3:06Those bone spurs, all they're doing is making it a higher likelihood that it's going to
59. 3:11impinge, or touch upon this nerve.
60. 3:13You're leaving more – less room for the nerve to occupy itself.
61. 3:17Meaning it's going to have a higher chance it's going to touch something.
62. 3:20Again, you might be building a really great neck by doing these exercises on the bone,
63. 3:24but the moment that new bone formation, or that compression that's going on in here through
64. 3:28the spine by doing them allows it to touch the nerve, you're going to be in a lot of
65. 3:32pain, my friend.
66. 3:33It may be the situation where you're doing this for a long period of time and never feel
67. 3:37anything until the day you wake up and realize "Holy shit!
68. 3:40Jeff was right.
69. 3:41I should have been doing something else."
70. 3:42What that something else should be is something that people talk about all the time, or you've
71. 3:45probably seen it as well.
72. 3:47It's a plate series.
73. 3:48What you do is you wrap a plate in a towel, put it on your head and you go through the
74. 3:53four major directions of movement here.
75. 3:55Which would be flexion, extension, and side bending.
76. 3:58Now as you see me here doing flexion, what I do is I lay so my head is rested at the
77. 4:03back of the bench, and laying backward over the end of the bench.
78. 4:05So when I go through the motion here I have to flex my neck, bring it forward, in order
79. 4:09to work the muscles on the front side.
80. 4:11Then I flip over, I put the plate on the back of my head, and I do the same thing.
81. 4:15Now what I'm going to do is I'm going to bend my head backward.
82. 4:16I'm going to work the muscles on the backside of the neck.
83. 4:19When I turn on the side here and drop my head down, and have to come up against the resistance
84. 4:24of the plate, I'm actually now working one side of the neck.
85. 4:27Then of course, when I go to the other side I'm working the other side of the neck.
86. 4:30But that's not even enough if you want to do this properly.
87. 4:33What you need to do in order to do this really the right way, is add one more significant
88. 4:38tweak.
89. 4:39That is, if you want to work the neck, you have to realize that postularly we're usually
90. 4:43all pretty messed up.
91. 4:44We allow ourselves to have rounded shoulders throughout the day, then our head follows
92. 4:48our shoulders.
93. 4:49The only way that our head will compensate so that we can actually still see straight
94. 4:52ahead of us, is to move up that way.
95. 4:55So when it moves up that way what we're doing is, we're stretching out the muscles on the
96. 4:57front side of our neck here, and in the same process, weakening them.
97. 5:01So if we want to get this nice and strong here, we can't just train those four major
98. 5:06directions.
99. 5:07We have to do it in a way that we allow these de-flexors of the neck to become activated
100. 5:13and strong while we're training our neck.
101. 5:15S you need to be able to tuck your chin back, and in this way.
102. 5:19Not out here.
103. 5:21Pull it straight back.
104. 5:22If you have to you take your index finger, you put it right at the point of your chin,
105. 5:26you push straight back in like that.
106. 5:28Once you're strong in here, now I go through my motion.
107. 5:31If I want to go side bend, I go side bend.
108. 5:33When I go flexion, I go flexion here.
109. 5:35If I'm going to go extension, I go extension here.
110. 5:37So if you took a look at the plate series again you can see that now, with this modification,
111. 5:42pull the chin in, set it, and now do my reps.
112. 5:44I don’t care if I have to decrease the number of reps I can do to do them effectively with
113. 5:48this combination of de-flexion, or if I have to just lighten the weight.
114. 5:52But for anybody that tells you "Oh, you can't build a really big neck that way.
115. 5:55You need to be getting on the ground doing that bridging series", that's complete bullshit.
116. 5:59Because you can take any weight plate and continue to progress it.
117. 6:02I don’t care if you want to throw 100lbs on there, if you can handle it.
118. 6:04The idea of progressive overload is firmly in place here and that is going to help you
119. 6:08build bigger muscles regardless of whether it's in your neck, the biceps, your triceps,
120. 6:12or your legs.
121. 6:13So the idea is, allow yourself the chance to strengthen your neck safely because you
122. 6:18really only get one.
123. 6:20If you abuse it you're going to be in big trouble down the line.
124. 6:23As I've said before, those complications that can happen from having all that compression,
125. 6:26it's not a matter of "Oh, I'm good.
126. 6:28I've been doing it for a long period of time."
127. 6:30You don’t know what's going on in here unless you've had an MRI to show, or prove what damage
128. 6:33you've done because the day you wake up you literally will experience what I talk about
129. 6:38here.
130. 6:39That 0 to 60.
131. 6:40No pain, to all of a sudden "I can't really move my arm.
132. 6:42There's so much weakness.
133. 6:43I have a lot of pain here.
134. 6:44What do I do?
135. 6:45I can't even move my neck."
136. 6:46You might have though you even slept on it wrong.
137. 6:47Maybe not.
138. 6:48Maybe a lot more things are going on inside your neck than you ever bargained for.
139. 6:51So let's do this the right way, guys.
140. 6:53This channel is all about training and training for the right effect, but at the same time
141. 6:56doing it safely.
142. 6:57If you're looking for a workout program that does the exact thing, never compromising the
143. 7:01gains you can make, but just trying to guide you down the way to do it the most safe way,
144. 7:05for the most longevity; then head to ATHLEANX.com to get our ATHLEANX training program.
145. 7:08In the meantime, if you've found this video helpful, leave your comments and thumbs up
146. 7:11below.
147. 7:13This came as a direct suggestion that you guys have made many times on this channel.
148. 7:16That's why I'm making this video for you.
149. 7:18So continue to make those suggestions, and I'll continue to do the videos you want to
150. 7:21see.
151. 7:22All right, guys.
152. 7:23I'll be back here again soon.
153. 7:24See ya.