We are starting a series of articles on working with own and additional weight for all muscle groups. Today I want to talk about how to pump up the neck, what exercises to perform, and which ones are traumatic. I will try to provide comprehensive materials regarding the physiological characteristics of the neck muscles and exercises with their own and additional weight for her.

By the way, have you been to the doctor, do you know how much you can load your neck? There are restrictions, many can only do a light workout. There are also limitations without pathologies and injuries. The neck performs many vital functions and is often a particularly vulnerable spot. Various supply routes pass through the neck, such as the esophagus, larynx, trachea, and blood vessels supplying the brain. The cervical vertebrae and muscles are designed to provide the head with the greatest mobility. The neck is a very delicate part of the body and must be treated very carefully and thoughtfully. A broken cervical vertebra usually leads to paralysis of everything below the neck or death.
Proper, non-traumatic warm-up for the neck

Before any workout, you need a warm-up, do not forget about it! Many do not know at all why to warm up before training, but they warm up and often not correctly. A warm-up is necessary in order to disperse the blood through the peripheral vessels to those departments that will be loaded in order to avoid their overstretching, overstrain or spasm. Also, a gentle warm-up is needed, but not because of the fragility of the disc, but because of its sensitivity to sharp, planar loads, one can even express it, although this is not entirely correct - disc instability in the intervertebral region! Forget about school gym or illiterate fitness trainers who teach you to stretch your neck at high speed, toss your head like crazy. After one incorrect warm-up, there will most likely be nothing in terms of injuries, but if you systematically do the warm-up incorrectly, let’s nod sharply, or jerk your head in different directions uncontrollably and strongly, then you can get prolapse or protrusion.
Injuries due to improper warm-up and load
Why is it necessary to knead and load the neck carefully and thoughtfully? First, let's understand what a disk is.
For those who do not know the intervertebral disc - a complex structure, in the center of which is the nucleus pulposus, which has elastic properties and serves vertical load absorber. Around the nucleus is a multi-layer fibrous ring, which holds the nucleus in the center and prevents the vertebrae from moving to the side relative to each other. The disk does not have its own nutrition, it does not have its own vessels, nutrition is carried out diffusely - due to the muscles that bring blood through their own vessels and vessels of other soft tissues. When there is malnutrition of the disc, degenerative diseases occur.

With an active warm-up or a load on the neck, you can move the discs. There are 2 clinical gradations - prolapse, when part of the disc falls out due to a defect in the fibrous ring, as well as protrusion - this is a slight lateral protrusion of the fibrous membrane of the disc, or in other words, the condition preceding the disc herniation.
With both options, disability very often occurs, because the cervical region is short, narrow and minimal changes are enough for the consequences to become irreversible - then there will be torticollis, which requires a bandage or the so-called Collar of Chance.

Also, under heavy loads, you can get a hernia - this is a rupture of the fibrous ring with a partial exit of the nucleus or a sufficiently large protrusion of the fibrous membrane with part of the nucleus. Both diseases are accompanied by aseptic inflammation, swelling and compression of the spinal nerves - which leads to pain. As I already wrote, this is due to malnutrition, and nutrition is tied to the muscles. those. if the muscle does not work, the percentage of development of degenerative diseases is high. Therefore, it is very important to exercise. Hernias are formed from loads that, for example, the cervical apparatus is not ready to withstand.

You also need to know that the fibrous ring holds the disc between the vertebrae, and allows it to perform its mobility function so that the vertebrae move - the neck spins. The ring is an additional shock absorber under loads. In general, disorders (injuries) appear due to an incommensurable load on the apparatus, which includes two vertebrae and a disk lying in the fibrous ring between them.

The myth of the vertebrae

Before I talk about exercises for the neck muscles, I want to dispel one myth. A lot of athletes, even of a serious level, talk about erasing vertebrae. For example, my respected Sergey Nikolaevich Badyuk. Pay attention to the time 00:30.

The term "erasing vertebrae" in medicine is not. This can be called osteochondrosis of the spine, degenerative-inflammatory changes in the vertebral discs. Spondylosis of bone tissue in the anterior parts of the vertebral bodies, most often occurs with spinal instability. Old people develop degenerative changes in the spine naturally due to metabolic disorders. Suppose, when the processes of mineralization are disturbed, calcium is washed out of the bones, and it is practically not absorbed by them and the bones become fragile, thin, brittle, but even for the elderly, the bones break in other places but not on the vertebrae, for this you need to wear bags of cement around your neck! It seems to me that many could mean osteoporosis and the compression fractures associated with them. Here is the situation with this statement.
Osteochondrosis is a complex of dystrophic disorders in articular cartilage. It can develop in almost any joint, but intervertebral discs are most often affected. Depending on the localization, cervical, thoracic and lumbar osteochondrosis is distinguished.
Spondylosis is an involutionary process of gradual wear and aging of the anatomical structures of the spine, accompanied by dystrophy of the outer fibers of the anterior or lateral parts of the fibrous ring, its protrusion under pressure of the pulpy nucleus that has retained its turgor, deposition and ossification of the anterior longitudinal ligament and the formation of marginal bone growths (osteophytes) along the axis of the spine only along the circumference of the anterior and lateral sections.
Osteoporosis (lat. osteoporosis) is a disease associated with damage (thinning) of bone tissue, leading to fractures and bone deformities.

Do not forget! The disc between the vertebrae is a living structure and it changes its height, it is higher in the morning and lower in the evening.

Recommendations and features

1. To increase the volume of the neck, it is enough to swing it 1-2 times a week for 10 minutes, 10-20 repetitions will be the best option.
2. The pace of the exercise should be slow, and the first few repetitions with a small weight.
3. Do not take heavy weights at once, especially for people who have never shaken their neck or body in general. Increase the weights gradually if you feel that you are already ready for them.
3. Performing exercises on the neck, do not jerk your head, all movements should be smooth.
4. The neck is easily injured, especially when bending over. heads to the side, so control this process. If your neck is easily injured or you feel uncomfortable, do not do side bends at first or at all.
5. You should not experience any discomfort or pain while exercising.
6. If the technique of performing “forward-backward movement with the head”, then you need to move clearly forward and clearly back, you must move in a straight line!
7. Exercises are essentially a large number. The main thing is to understand the essence of which exercises you need to perform and which not. Which are dangerous and which are not.
Warm-up exercises
1. Tilt your head back and forth.
2. Head turns left and right.
3. Circular movement of the head to the right and left.
4. Resting the palms of the hands on the forehead, tilting the head back and forth.
5. Grasping the occipital region of the head with the hands, tilting back and forth.
6. Resting with the palm of the hand, on the side of the head, tilting the head to the side.

Let's move on to exercises for the neck muscles.
Most of those who were engaged in martial arts, especially wrestling, will unanimously argue that the wrestling bridge is the best exercise and there is nothing to argue about. You can’t argue, I don’t know more effective exercise, it can develop neck muscles to incredible strength, but it doesn’t give volume to everyone. However, according to many professional athletes and sports doctors, the wrestling bridge is a very traumatic exercise. Hernias are guaranteed in the near future, especially if you start doing a bridge when you have never played sports. Here is the opinion of Sergei Bodyuk on this matter. He also offers several exercises.

Neck collar exercise

You can buy a collar at any sports store or make your own.

Tilts of the head while standing or sitting.
To increase efficiency, we hang additional weight on the chain.
1. Put a collar on your head
2. Take a working position (standing/sitting)
3. Gently raise your head all the way, hold your head for a second, exhale and lower your head until your chin rests on your body. Raise and lower your head clearly in a straight line. Work with full range.
4. Keep your back straight.
Clamp exercises in the gym
Lying neck flexion with extra weight
1. Lie face up on a horizontal bench, hold the plate in your hands. Position yourself so that your