Here are the 4 Reasons you need to strengthen your Neck Muscles

1. Decreased neck pain and headaches

One of the common complaints we see as physios is pain around the neck, top of shoulders and often into the head causing headaches. Although not all headaches are caused by neck pain, there are definitely a large portion that are. Commonly these headaches start with pain and stiffness on one side of the neck that shoots up into the side of the temple. The root of the problem? In most cases the cause is decreased strength and stability around the neck! combine this with prolonged poor postures sitting at work or laying on the couch on our phones and we’ve got the perfect storm. Increased strain is placed on the muscles that aim to hold the neck in place, they become overloaded causing tiny muscle tears, inflammation, tightness and pain.

2. Formula One Athletes are Doing it

Ok so let’s go back to that image of the thick necked rugby player. Following on from the high number of concussions in Rugby and resulting game time lost to rehab for necks post-injury, the experts began brainstorming into prevention. What did they come up with? Neck strength! Multiple studies have begun to be conducted in other sports too. Findings in both womens soccer and American football have suggested that those starting with better neck strength and stability are more likely to avoid or minimise severity of neck injury during their sports.

3. Stabilisation

You don’t have to build a thick rugby neck! Exercise programs can be designed to achieve different results. Super heavy low reps has been shown to have more of a “bulking” effect (thick neck), whereas lower weight with holds or higher repetition movements for endurance can strengthen without significantly increasing muscle size. Rugby players train specifically to handle the high loads of impacts with other players during their games and therefore NEED this thickened musculature to handle contacts. Their training programs are designed to build this bulk and strength, yours doesn’t have to be!

4. Why not?!

These days we strengthen every muscle in our body. Go to the gym and we see people doing exercises covering legs, butt, core, back, shoulders and arms. There are machines isolating muscle groups all over the body and even trainers encouraging us to split sessions into a “leg day”, “arm day”, “chest” or “back”. But when has anyone ever mentioned “neck day”? Why aren’t there any gym machines targeting the neck?? It seems only logical to me that if we’re going to train all of our other muscles that we should absolutely include the neck musculature! And it’s not just me starting to think this way…

Maintaining good strength in the muscles around your neck is one key factor that will minimise the risk of this issue by increasing endurance so that your muscles can sustain good postures longer, and avoid fatigue leading to overload, tightness and pain. So start thinking about strengthening your neck and prepare to reap the benefits! Stuck on ideas? Come in and get some inspo, or better yet give our Muscle Of The Month neck program a crack!