gabbah

How do you guys strengthen your neck? I have started off by just holding my own head down as if in plumb clinch, and pulling the head up and then letting it down again.
Do you guys use a rope and a weight as the thais do?
Also, do you train the front and side of the neck, by lying on your back and lifting the head just above the ground and holding it for a minute?
In videos I have only seen thais training the back side of the neck, not the front, that's why I'm asking.

My gym doesn't really do neck training, I guess because it's a kickboxing gym and we don't have any clinch work. But I'd like to add it to my training because I'd like to also be able to grapple and I have noticed my neck is always fucked up after some grappling. :P
I'd also like to be able to move on to MT without having neck problems. I've heard of countless people getting neck injuries/problems when they start MT.

ddrive

I've done something similar to what you explained above except I rotate my head in small circles and move my head very slowly. It helps develop strong neck muscles and resistance when taking blows from your opponent.

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Ryukyu Damashi

Get about 3ft of 1/2 inch rubber hose from the hardware store and hang a light weight about 10lbs from it, (gallon water jug will work) bite the hose in your mouth and slowly move your head up and down. Do this for high reps and it will condition your neck for clinch work. This is common in Thai camps.

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Garland

...okay, here are a few...

wrestler's bridges,
variations of the above, but side, and front.

neck ups, basicly mimic an Iron Maiden fan.

there are a few machines that focus on the neck...

but...plate weight, start off at about 25 lbs, a chain, wrap the chain with a t-shirt, put in mouth, bite down, and do neck ups...50x. move up weight or reps as you get used to it.

They make helmet looking things too...I have one but I prefer the aformentioned method....

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aseepish

There's no call for that kind of haircut in this day and age.

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chalambok

not to stray too far from the original thread here, but did you know Bruce Dickinson was, for a time, one of the top-ranked amateur fencers in the world?

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Drag'n

I was slack on my neck conditioning, and now I'm suffering from a neck hernia.
The pain gets so bad sometimes I cant move my arm.
A real pain in the neck.
I know a few other pros with similar conditions.
Take my advice and do some of the exercises listed above.

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gabbah

Thanks for the tips guys.

Abe

Don't thais bite a rope with weights tie to it, and pull up? strength neck and jaw doesnt it? saw it on a documentry somewhere.

also i got a question that might be a little offtopic, i got a very skinny neck and fairy large adams-apple, friends always tells me to be careful about hits to the throat. like can i bulk up my neck a lil if its necassary? and how?

sorry gabbah for using ur thread but it's a similar question and i hope u don't mind.

gabbah

Well, perhaps you can train you neck where your adams apple is, like shalin monks do to be able to put a lot of pressure on there when they bend a spear with their throat.
But it's a waste of time, because you need to have your chin tucked anyway when you box. And you could probably never take a shot to throat without being very damaged or die from a crushed windpipe, no matter how much you condition it.
So just keep your chin down always, that way your throat is protected.

Garland

that bending a spear or breaking an arrow shit with the neck is complete bullshit. It's a parlor trick, I saw some physics proffesor explain how it works once, and then do it, and he was about as scrawny as the arrow.

there is NO good way to strengthen the area around the adams apple, because it is not all muscle. the best way to protect that area is to keep your chin DOWN. Simple, ain't it.

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The_Judo_Jibboo

i heard a judo guy saying that the neck stretches/strengthening exercise he had done in class saved him from serious injury in a car crash. I think he called them bridges, but my sensei hasn't shown us anything to help our necks. How do you do bridges (if that's the right name)?

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aseepish

The neck bridges I was shown were from Matt Furey's book Combat Conditioning. I would be careful with exercise that involves the neck/spine, especially those as contraversial as neck bridges.

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gabbah

Yeah I know it looks way harder than it actually is. The monks have found the easiest way possible allowed by physics to do their cool stuff. Like breaking metals bars on the head, is done in a precise way in which the weight of the bar is doing the breaking of it. And it's very brittle. So they don't really have iron heads, they just are very skilled at breaking brittle bars without hurting their heads, but it looks impressive if you don't know the physics involved.
But I still would have thought they trained the muscles around the throat to do that spear bending easier or safer. I'm sure a normal person couldn't do that at least, not without training.
Agree.

george stando

When I was in thailand was the first time I really got in the neck conditioning and it paid off in dividends by time i left. The key is doing it slowly and progressively in increments because the last thing you want is any damage to neck whatsoever plus if you are training daily like inthailand the second last thing you want is a sore neck with clinching practice twice a day. I think clinching practice in itself allows one to really understand how to use the neck and positioning to get by.