Why would you want a stronger neck for grappling? Well, there are a number of different reasons.
First, and most importantly a strong neck is more resistant to injury.
Unfortunately accidents happen in grappling, and if you get planted on your head, or someone twists your neck unexpectedly, then the stronger your neck is then the less likely it is to get bent in half and injured.
A strong neck is also great defensively: it makes it harder for you to have your posture broken down, harder to get choked out, and if you do MMA or boxing it even helps you absorb punches and not get knocked out so easily.
And then there’s the offensive aspect too…
A strong neck allows you to use your head like a 5th limb, to push, pull or isolate your opponent’s body parts (if you’ve ever rolled with a wrestler then you’ve probably already experienced this).
So how do you get a strong neck?
Lots of people advocate wrestler-style bridging exercises, which can certainly work but I find that compressing the vertebrae with all that bodyweight can really aggravate necks that are already compromised.
Personally I’m a big fan of using neck harnesses…
They allow you to work the big muscles at the back of the neck without putting a ton of compressive force onto the bones, discs and nerves of the neck.
Over they years I tried out a ton of different neck harnesses styles (and got some very strange looks in the gym, but never mind), but was never completely happy…
Some were too too flimsy. Others were too uncomfortable. Some were very difficult to adjust. Some mashed my ears. And some were designed by people who had clearly never used them for their own training.
So I ended up having a series of prototypes built to my specs, made using thick leather, copious padding and 11 gauge steel.
It took a lot of iterations and testing, but now I’m very happy with the final version. It’s as comfortable as these things get and absolutely bombproof.
If you want to check them out I had a few extra sets made in case anyone else wanted to try them out and put them onto Amazon.com.
(There aren’t many, and the existing sets will probably sell out pretty quickly.)
This is a market test, and right now they’re $15 off because I’m hoping to get some reviews and ratings from my customers in case I ever do a second batch of them!
And if you grab it at this time I’ll give you an unconditional lifetime guarantee. If it breaks or it doesn’t fit you then I’ll replace, repair or refund it for free.
Cheers,
Stephan Kesting