A strong neck is essential for BJJ and grappling.
Obviously a strong neck is simply harder to choke, but that’s not the end of the matter…
A strong neck also helps you maintain good posture when standing and in the guard, and high level grapplers inevitably use the head as a fifth limb.
(If you’ve ever had a skilled wrestler in your guard then you probably know what I’m talking about, because inevitably they all decide that the grinding the top of their head in to your face is a good idea.)
Finally, and most importantly, I’ve found that strengthening the neck helps maintain the stability of that area after a neck injury; at least that’s the case with me.
I’m not a doctor, but it does seem that strengthening the area around an injured joint is almost always a good idea.
In the quest to rebuild my own injured neck I’m currently trying out many of the commercial designs on the market. Some are better than others but so far I’m not really satisfied with any of them. If you have suggestions for a brand I should try please put them in the comments below!
P.S. Months and months after this post was written and being generally dissatisfied with what I was finding, I ended up manufacturing my own neck harness. It’s available here on Amazon.com if you’re interested in checking it out.