Most of the time, people go to gym just to exercise chest, biceps, back and legs or join yoga lessons, but neck muscle is the one that is often overlooked. In this “Neck strengthening exercises at home with and without weights” article, we want to introduce to you the neck exercises, which aim to strengthen your neck muscle. However please take note that these exercises are subjected to physiotherapist’s advice prior to your start. If you experience pain during the exercises, please stop immediately as some vertebras in your neck are complicatedly connected to a lot of nerve, which may be damaged due to wrong moves.

We will start off with some basic neck strengthening exercises, in which we believe will give you motivation before you engage in advance ones. In order to make the most out of these neck strengthening exercises, you are required to perform these at least 3 times daily. As your neck muscle gets stronger, you can take higher dosage by increasing the number of repetitions, frequency or the duration for each exercise. Contradicting to the weight loss exercises with intensive frequency motions, neck exercises need the trainers to do slowly and correctly. These following neck strengthening exercises below can be done with or without weights.

I. Neck Strengthening Exercises Without Weights – Basic Exercises At Home

1. Shoulder Blade Squeeze 

You can either start this exercise in standing or sitting position. However, remember to keep your back straight. Your shoulders should bend backward while your chin is tucked in. If you are doing it correctly, you will feel some tension along your neck vertebras. The reason that I have to instruct you about the position very carefully is because it affects the effectiveness of the exercise. Wrong starting position will result in severe neck injury. Now you slowly squeeze your shoulder blades inward as far as possible provided that you don’t suffer from any noticeable pain. Hold that position for 5 second for each rep and do at least 10 reps for this exercise.

2. Chin Tucks 

Similarly to the shoulder blade squeeze exercise, you can begin this exercise in sitting or standing position with your neck straightened and your shoulders push backward a bit. Tuck in your chin until you feel a mild stretch in your neck. Hold this position in 3 seconds with your eyes and nose facing forward. Repeat this exercise at least 10 times. However, please take notes that 10 times is just a recommendation for an average person. If you experience severe pain or discomfort from doing this exercise, please review your chin tucks technique carefully or reduce the number of reps to meet your body’s demand.

3. Neck Lateral Resistance 

Many people do not understand the muscle system of the neck. It consists of lateral and vertical muscles, which spread out all over your neck. The neck lateral resistance exercise will help you strengthen your entire neck. You start the exercise with your head rest gently against your hand. Press your head toward the hand and use the hand to push it back to the starting position to finish a complete move. You can further train your lateral neck muscle by trying to touch the shoulder with your ear for 5-7 seconds. Repeat the move with each hand. You are recommended to do 10 reps daily provided that there is no noticeable pain.

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4. Neck Rotational Resistance 

Neck rotational resistance is an exercise that makes your entire neck muscles work together. This exercise is very interesting as it does not only help you train your neck muscle, but also help you relax your neck and somewhat give you comfortable feeling. You can start the exercise by placing one hand on a side of the head. After that, you can start rotating your head. Please pay attention to the motion of the head. To make the most out of this exercise, you have to make sure your head reaches the shoulder as much as possible. When your shoulder and your chin are straight in a line, hold that position for 5-7 seconds. You are recommended to do 10 reps daily. Do it slowly to feel the neck muscle stretching. If any noticeable pain occurs during the exercise, please stop and reduce the number of repeats.

That is it for the basic neck strengthening exercises. Make sure to take sometimes to practice and do these  exercises carefully for 5-6 days so that your neck can be familiar with the stretching as well as get some warm-up before moving on to advanced neck strengthening exercise.

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II. Neck Strengthening Exercises At Home – Advance Neck Strengthening Exercises 

These exercises are required to perform at least 3 times daily. As soon as you complete and get familiar with the basic exercises, I believe your neck muscle now has gotten much stronger. These advanced exercises will give you an edge over other neck muscle exercises in term of the effectiveness. Please be reflexible and don’t just take my recommendation as your only solution. The strength of neck muscle varied with different people. You can intensify the work out rate by increasing the number of reps, duration, or frequency to meet your body’s demand.

1. Static Extension

You can begin this exercise with standing or sitting position with your back and neck straight. Your shoulder blades should pull back slightly.  Put your hand behind your neck while still keeping your back and neck straight. Push your head toward the hand position. You can make the push harder a bit as long as you do not feel any noticeable pain. If you do it correctly, you should feel a stretch behind your neck. Hold this position for 3-5 seconds for at least 10 reps.

2. Lying Face Down Plate Neck Resistance

These are neck strengthening exercises with weights. Just like forearm exercise, you have to do slowly and feel your neck muscle contraction and expansion. You will feel a lot of pressure on your neck so you are recommended to try the motion of this exercise without the plate first. You start the lying face down plate neck resistance exercise with your body lying face down straight on a flat bench while holding a weights plate behind your head. To increase the effectiveness, you need to adjust your position such that your shoulders, and your chest, and forearms are comfortable off the bench. This will set a correct starting position. Firmly hold the plate behind your head and slowly bend your head down. Raise your head up to the starting position in a semi-circular motion and hold that position for a few seconds. There you have completed a complete move for the lying face down plate neck resistance exercise. However, please be reminded that you should start the exercise slowly to prevent yourself from getting accidental injury. Any sort of sudden move or jerking motion is strictly restricted. Once you get familiar with the motion of the exercise, you can go ahead with more intensive training by increasing the number of reps, holding duration or frequency.

3. Lying Face Up Plate Neck Resistance

Get ready with your starting position by lying face up straight on the bench while holding the weights plate on top of your head. Please remember to position yourself correctly so that your head and shoulders are off the bench. Keep the plate firmly above your head and slowly bring down the weights plate to form a semi-circular motion as being shown in the pictures. Raise your head back to starting position in a semi-circular motion to complete a move. Upon bringing the head up, you should hold the contraction for 3-5 seconds. Please get some warm up before the commencement of the exercise to prevent yourself from getting injury. Once your neck muscles are familiar with the motion, you can further train your neck by increasing the number of reps, contraction holding duration or frequency.

4. Neck SMR 

You will need to prepare a muscle roller or rolling pin for this exercise. Place the muscle roller behind your neck to set up the starting position. Many people make simple mistake in this exercise by placing the roller directly against the spine. Instead, you have to place the muscle roller around the neck and press it hard against either side of the spine. Wrong starting position will result in the inefficiency of the exercise and you will not be able to get the result that you want. Start the exercise by rolling up and down the muscle roller and pause at the point where you feel the stretch for 10-30 seconds.

That is it for the neck strengthening exercises. If you like this “Neck strengthening exercises at home with and without weights”   article and find it helpful, please help us share this article to your friends and let us know what you think by making comment below. Last but not least, there are numerous fitness and exercise articles from the site vkool.com, that give you tons of useful tips and lessons on how to improve your body health. Please take sometimes to read them because we are sure that you will benefit from such informative articles.

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