That is because I am ancient, and my father was a boxer. I don't know if boxing as a kid counts because it was more or less the first kid who cried lost. This was the sixties when kids were allowed to hit each other.
Whats your workout split if you do martial arts?
- Thread starter Bigbear
- Start date
What do you guys do to get your neck, i heard you guys do a lot of stuff involving the neck to help with takin a punch
Super simple to start. Heavier loaded progressions are almost another subject on their own.
First prepare to be blown away at the pump and burn coming your way.
Lay face down on a bench with the end of the bench even with your armpit so your traps, neck and head are all hanging in space.
Tuck your chin to your chest and then lift your head up as if trying to look at the ceiling. That's a rep. Do high rep sets.
Quarter turn to your side, back and forth (up and down) essentially trying to touch your ears to each shoulder. That's a rep.
Lay on yer back, do it like you did on front.
That's one giant set. Non-stop, only rest is when quickly changing positions.
Unweighted progression: Lay in all four positions and turn your head as if you were looking all the way to the left then the right. Add these to the giant set.
Weighted progressions: I'm ok with head harness with cables or bands or weights but do not rush to that until sufficiently strong with weightless stuff. I'm personally not a big fan of neck bridges or any load bearing movements. Save that brutality for the ring or dojo where its often unavoidable. IMO any twisting of the spine while under a vertical load is asking for trouble, you are grinding your spine down. When I see people doing walking twisting lunges carrying a heavy ball or KB I shudder.
Have you seen those machines that are supposed to work your obliques, you like lock your head and shoulders into a spot then you have a swivel chair that has weighted cables. That looks like a machine designed to slip a disc or something lol
Yeah I'm not a huge fan of those either. In one respect they are ok because there is not that vertical loading I mentioned, so the disastrous grinding is attenuated, The down side I worry about is that the movement itself could become one that is unnatural due to being locked in. Plus sometimes I see people really whipping it hard side to side, maybe asking for trouble. I prefer hanging "tic-tocs" - (they probably have some newfangled name now) or standing twist with a cable or band. Hardly ever done them myself but I'll coach it.
Yea my necks constantly sore I should try these weightless ones
A lot of this is genetics. I have a naturally large neck. Take @Sorbate - he has big arms and a smaller neck. I know this by his past pic he had up and he put his measurements on the forum with @Oldguyjiujitsu. In no way is that a shot at my friend Sorby. My shirts are 181/2 to 19 inch for my neck and I am 225 lbs - my neck should not be this big and I suspect it is mostly genetics. If I don't buy 181/2, I can't button them up and wear a tie when work requires it.
That being said, my neck grew from 17 to what it is now with trap/upper back work and not on purpose. I love upright rows and they have seen to go by the way of the dinosaur but I don't do them on shoulder day. I don't use machines ever as most workouts are at home so I will have one or two bars with my working set weight and do them until I can't touch my chin or at least just below. Drop the weight and pick up the other bar and hit it again. I do them on back day but not every workout.
On shoulder day, I often do a super set - I much prefer doing standing exercises and I never use straps. I want to work on all my stabilizing muscles while I am concentrating on the muscle I am trying to make grow.
Shoulders can take a beating and I find higher reps are required. My main exercise is OHP with dumbbells after a very good warm up as it is easy to hurt your shoulders. Shoulder width stance, stomach and back kept tight (I never use a belt either but I don't deadlift 1000 lbs like @Hussell). I do the press exercise and then whatever weight I am using (only in the working sets) drop the weight into shrugs to failure. If I can't hold it, I work on hard strength so I can.
Even seated rows for your back, depending where you are setting the cable to pull and where you pull the weight will build up the traps. The traps mould into the neck and they grow together or they do with me. Deadlifts would too but I don't do deadlifts anymore.
It also makes a big difference how long your neck is - guys with longer necks will have a harder time putting on more circumference.
I have a small neck because I am a small guy, lol. I'm 5'6", if I had a neck like yours I'd look like that neck guy that the meme was made about, lol.
Plus you are right I think its genetics also because my traps are not huge either, but I also have not overly trained my traps because I am not wide and I didn't want to look more narrow by overly developing them. I was trying to give an illusion of being wider by having larger shoulders and less traps.
Little man issues, lol.
I do alot of framers walks, trap bar deadlifts, trap bar shrugs, cable shrugs and I use a resistance band wrapped around my head and just do a back and forth movement, but farmers walks kill them the stretch is insane. I'm not a fighter though I just figure having a strong neck with big traps will help in life.
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Palmer, you may know this and maybe I am wrong but the reason 'taking a punch' is capable for some is two fold.
Some people are just born with iron jaws and seem impossible to knock out. Frankie Edgar is an example - watch him in a few of the older fights and you have to wonder how he ever stayed awake. He took such a beating in fights, I have no idea how he ever got back up against Gray Maynard. People get knocked out because they get hit hard enough usually on the chin or behind the ear, but I suppose you could get knocked out hit anywhere, and it shakes your brain in your head because your head moved so fast and snaps back as in the left hook. You are out - upper cuts and left hooks seem to be the most popular punches for knocking people out but in order to get a good upper cut you have to get close and you may not want to. @Bagua may have more to add he not just trains but studies martial arts like science if I understand right.
If you build up very strong neck muscles it will make it harder for someone to move your head around with a punch but if Mark Hunt hits you with a flush left hook it will make no difference who you are (most likely). For example watch some of the punches Brock Lesnar took in his short UFC career and he was clearly messed up but not out. Most guys would have been out as in the fight with Shane Carwin. Brock Lesnar is a freak of nature - steroids or not. He is just a freak for strength and naturally a massive man with a huge neck who had to cut weight to make heavy weight.
Just my opinion but if you aren't a trained fighter learn to hit the chin but with that punch comes danger - teeth. If you hit someone's teeth you have a good chance of getting a bad infection and cutting you knuckles or tendons in your knuckles unless you have leather knuckles and punch rocks like @Bagua does. He put a picture of his hands on before, no idea where the thread is but I was amazed at how thick his hands/knuckles looked.
The best way is not to fight lol but sometimes you have no choice.
Getting off topic but you asked and that is why some fighters train their neck or at least that is what I am told.
I think everyone over time looses their iron jaw especially the more often you get knocked out. Some say after a few knockouts you probably shouldn't keep going because it'll just get easier and easier. Also if it's harder to get knocked out you'll inevitably take more hits and trauma to the head. Don't get me wrong strong neck is important but so is good defense lol
My favourite contact exercise was with a heavy bag. Tie a belt around the bag so you are so close you can't move from the bag. You rest the upper portion of your forehead on the bag so there is a jarring motion from the bag each time you strike. It keeps constant pressure on your neck because you always push on the bag and get a jolt each time you punch. It might sound ridiculous, but practicing head butts on the bag is also good. It's not a super hard smack but a relatively light strike with a push against the bag. Then, a series of isometric holds are held at varying neck angles. You should find out early in your training if you can take a punch or kick to the head.
Knuckles for @Goldenrod.
Knuckles for @Goldenrod.
Do you wear gloves and wrapes on the bag or just wrapes or?
Nothing. No wraps or gloves. Bare-knuckle.
A comment and a question for y'all.
Been well covered now but I wish I had mention the isometric component in my initial reply. 3 types of contractions can contribute to hypertrophy - Concentric, Eccentric and Isometric. The science that I know might be out of date now but apparently Eccentric can be the greatest contributor followed by Concentric and then Isometric. It seems like most bodybuilders, including myself, probably don't respect that hierarchy in their training accordingly. IOW if looking to get the most efficacy out of a rep the Eccentric portion would get the most attention but that's not what seems to happen enough in real life practice.
The least respected in hypertrophy training must be the eccentric. The number I've heard for it's possible contribution is around 15% which is significant but you hardly ever see it in use.
As usual I said all that so I could say this - The neck seems to be the most visible example of how well it can work. There are other factors like number of androgen receptors etc at play but the indirect and isometric stuff that you've all mentioned sure seems worthy. Even the exercises I posted have a big iso component to them as the range is slowly worked.
The question - please comment and correct my understanding of PART of the KO mechanism. It comes from my personal experience unfortunately and has a lot to do with how much importance I place on neck training not just for bodybuilding but for athletes in contact sports. Much simplified terminology-
It may be counter intuitive but to limit severity of injury you want any collision to last as long as possible. Be that a car crash or a punch to the head the peak forces magnify the damage if the time is compressed. IOW "speed kills". I can't recall the equation but velocity is squared I think(?)
Your brain is suspended by a membrane that keeps it away from contacting your skull. That membrane along with your neck muscles contributes to the a sort of elastic or spongy type of resistance that slows the collision of your brain to your skull down. Of course other factors and forces come into the equation as well but these are among the most prominent.
Part of the reason we develop a glass jaw over time is that the membrane can tear and become ineffective, this can be from a single collision or many over time. I'm not sure if I have a glass jaw but apparently I do have this problem, docs have told me if I didn't have a big strong neck I'd likely be really fucked up from car wrecks alone.
Corrections or thoughts to further my understanding please and thanks?
Been well covered now but I wish I had mention the isometric component in my initial reply. 3 types of contractions can contribute to hypertrophy - Concentric, Eccentric and Isometric. The science that I know might be out of date now but apparently Eccentric can be the greatest contributor followed by Concentric and then Isometric. It seems like most bodybuilders, including myself, probably don't respect that hierarchy in their training accordingly. IOW if looking to get the most efficacy out of a rep the Eccentric portion would get the most attention but that's not what seems to happen enough in real life practice.
The least respected in hypertrophy training must be the eccentric. The number I've heard for it's possible contribution is around 15% which is significant but you hardly ever see it in use.
As usual I said all that so I could say this - The neck seems to be the most visible example of how well it can work. There are other factors like number of androgen receptors etc at play but the indirect and isometric stuff that you've all mentioned sure seems worthy. Even the exercises I posted have a big iso component to them as the range is slowly worked.
The question - please comment and correct my understanding of PART of the KO mechanism. It comes from my personal experience unfortunately and has a lot to do with how much importance I place on neck training not just for bodybuilding but for athletes in contact sports. Much simplified terminology-
It may be counter intuitive but to limit severity of injury you want any collision to last as long as possible. Be that a car crash or a punch to the head the peak forces magnify the damage if the time is compressed. IOW "speed kills". I can't recall the equation but velocity is squared I think(?)
Your brain is suspended by a membrane that keeps it away from contacting your skull. That membrane along with your neck muscles contributes to the a sort of elastic or spongy type of resistance that slows the collision of your brain to your skull down. Of course other factors and forces come into the equation as well but these are among the most prominent.
Part of the reason we develop a glass jaw over time is that the membrane can tear and become ineffective, this can be from a single collision or many over time. I'm not sure if I have a glass jaw but apparently I do have this problem, docs have told me if I didn't have a big strong neck I'd likely be really fucked up from car wrecks alone.
Corrections or thoughts to further my understanding please and thanks?
Another factor is radiating shock wave, a mouth guard prevents it to an extent even just clenching your teeth hard. Even with a strong neck if someone opens there mouth and takes it right on the chin I'd bet it's lights out most of the time. Would the size of someone's neck make any difference is this case? I have no idea I'd hope so and think so but I don't know all of these mechanisms. Also Japanese jiu-jitsu and other cultures have neurological shut off points, vagus nerve ect...
sent you a PM