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How Do I Strengthen My Neck For BJJ?
There are a few ways to strengthen your neck for BJJ. Most likely if you are a beginner you will have pulled muscles in your neck and various pains throughout the day following training. This is probably because your neck is unconditioned to deal with the amount of pressure it is being put under. Over time your neck will become stronger and stronger until it doesn’t bother you anymore. If you do pull your neck in training it will get to a point where it heals very fast due to its core strength. The challenge is just getting to this state.
Is Neck Training Safe?
This depends on the exercises you are doing. A similar way of thinking about it would be asking “Is driving safe?”. It is, but depending on how you are approaching the task will greatly increase or reduce your risk. Some exercises have more potential for injury failure than others, some are completely safe, others have a risk element.
Remember that not training your neck is more likely to be unsafe since if you are sparring your neck will not always be in the exact position you want it. At least when you’re training the neck in isolation, you can keep it perfectly aligned with your spine and stop whenever you wish. During a tough roll, you may accidentally be spiked on your head or fall awkwardly to one side. At this point if your neck is strong, you may at worst have a sore neck for a couple of days. If your neck is not as conditioned this could lead to some upper disc and perhaps even spinal injuries if you are unfortunate enough.
Isometric Neck Bridges
One way to strengthen your neck is by doing isometric neck bridges. This is probably the best way to make your neck very strong for BJJ. Often seen used by wrestlers this puts a lot of your body weight into your head and feet only. By doing this, your neck muscles are forced to take a good portion of your bodyweight. In a sport where getting thrown on your neck is reasonably common, neck strength is a must in wrestling.
The negatives associated with isometric neck bridging is that there is a lot of anecdotal evidence from former wrestlers at the high levels of BJJ having upper back and neck pain from these exercises. The cervical vertebrae are extremely small and delicate, meaning if you slip and injure one of these bones it can cause arthritis. In turn, this can cause a lot of pressure on the spinal cord and the muscle tissue surrounding the area. This will give you a lot of pain in later life.
Rosi Sexton goes in to detail about why she does not like this excercise in the video below
Head Lifts
Head lifts are what I would recommend the most for BJJ neck exercises. This is because no matter how many you are doing, you are never lifting more than the weight of your head with the neck muscles.
The added benefit of this exercise is also that you do not have to do the exact exercise as shown in the picture. Moving your chin to your chest is a good linear movement and is good to have. But there is also an added benefit in moving your head from left to right and also moving your ear to each shoulder.
By doing this you will work more of the muscle groups around your neck, rather than just a single set.
Lastly, when doing these exercises it is best to have good form and move very slowly. You will get a better workout and get a stronger neck if you move through the motions slow whilst putting your neck under the same strain for a longer period of time.
Using Weights
Using weights can be used to get a very strong neck in a short period of time since you’re essentially loading up an unnatural amount of weight for your body to lift.
However, I would strongly advise against using this exercise for BJJ since it is not calisthenic. There is no need to put your neck under this much weight, especially if you are new and looking to build a strong neck.
The idea for you will be to build a neck with strong foundations that can be built upon slowly. If you go down this route you might build a very strong neck and get a lot of neck pain in the future because you did something slightly incorrectly.
This is more of a bodybuilders exercise or for a professional boxer. This is the exercise I would recommend the least to a casual BJJ hobbyist.
Summary
Overall I would strongly recommend head lifts for BJJ. They are simple and require no equipment and at the same time are very low risk. In BJJ slow and steady will win the race, there is no point focussing all your attention on gaining a big neck. It should be recognized that having a big neck is very advantageous since you’re much less likely to injure it or get upper back and shoulder pain.
If you ever have chronic neck pain you should stop training and seek a professionals advice. The exercises shown above may do you more harm than good if you are seriously injured.
