Strong Neck = Less Chance of K.O.?

SKELAC · December 19, 2011, 2:49am

[quote]devildog_jim wrote:
Having a strong neck isn’t going to intimidate anyone I know (seriously, Travolta could have a 36 in. neck and I wouldn’t be scared), and while it can help you keep from getting knocked out I wouldn’t spend time in the weight room doing neck training instead of in the ring learning to fight properly.

Neck strength can help a pro add to his defenses, but a beginner who isn’t fighting on a serious level is going to get more out of learning to fight than he is spending time in the gym working his neck. Not getting hit at all, either by slipping the punch or knocking out the other guy, beats surviving punches to the face.[/quote]

I cannot believe youre posting this bullshit.
In boxing/kickboxing you are gonna get hit in the fucking head.To condition your neck is PARAMOUNT.
I trained boxing,kickboxing and Muay Thai and in each of those sports we did neck strengtening in training sessions (manual resistance,neck bridging,other stuff).Everybody did it,beginners and advanced guys alike.

rundymc · December 19, 2011, 4:43am

Isn’t training your neck kind of like training your abs? Will it really take out that much time out of your training?

What’s a few sets at the end of a weight training session? I presume as martial artists we aren’t doing a lot of ‘assistance’ work anyway, so what’s stopping someone from doing some neck work in between sets of lateral raises or curlz.

Aussie_Davo · December 19, 2011, 10:54am

[quote]SKELAC wrote:

[quote]devildog_jim wrote:
Having a strong neck isn’t going to intimidate anyone I know (seriously, Travolta could have a 36 in. neck and I wouldn’t be scared), and while it can help you keep from getting knocked out I wouldn’t spend time in the weight room doing neck training instead of in the ring learning to fight properly.

Neck strength can help a pro add to his defenses, but a beginner who isn’t fighting on a serious level is going to get more out of learning to fight than he is spending time in the gym working his neck. Not getting hit at all, either by slipping the punch or knocking out the other guy, beats surviving punches to the face.[/quote]

I cannot believe youre posting this bullshit.
In boxing/kickboxing you are gonna get hit in the fucking head.To condition your neck is PARAMOUNT.
I trained boxing,kickboxing and Muay Thai and in each of those sports we did neck strengtening in training sessions (manual resistance,neck bridging,other stuff).Everybody did it,beginners and advanced guys alike. [/quote]

It MAY help, but not anywhere near as much as developing a solid defense in the first place.

So as jim said, chin tucked, hands in a defensive posture, and time spent on defensive skills will be so much more beneficial than trying to build a big thick neck - after all unless you don’t walk around with your neck flexed

Plenty of dudes with huge thick necks in combat sports have been KTFO’d or even have a rep for glass jaws. Similarly with ab training. If the logic was a more developed musculature protected you far more efficiently, then all these guys with highly developed midsections should be shrugging off body shots - except that doesn’t happen. It HELPS to be conditioned, but nothing that trumps defensive skills.

No one is saying “DON’T CONDITION YOUR NECK” they are saying instead of focusing on how to get the thickest neck possible, you would be better off spending majority of your time on learning skills first and foremost.

SKELAC · December 19, 2011, 12:29pm

[quote]Aussie Davo wrote:

[quote]SKELAC wrote:

[quote]devildog_jim wrote:
Having a strong neck isn’t going to intimidate anyone I know (seriously, Travolta could have a 36 in. neck and I wouldn’t be scared), and while it can help you keep from getting knocked out I wouldn’t spend time in the weight room doing neck training instead of in the ring learning to fight properly.

Neck strength can help a pro add to his defenses, but a beginner who isn’t fighting on a serious level is going to get more out of learning to fight than he is spending time in the gym working his neck. Not getting hit at all, either by slipping the punch or knocking out the other guy, beats surviving punches to the face.[/quote]

I cannot believe youre posting this bullshit.
In boxing/kickboxing you are gonna get hit in the fucking head.To condition your neck is PARAMOUNT.
I trained boxing,kickboxing and Muay Thai and in each of those sports we did neck strengtening in training sessions (manual resistance,neck bridging,other stuff).Everybody did it,beginners and advanced guys alike. [/quote]

It MAY help, but not anywhere near as much as developing a solid defense in the first place.

So as jim said, chin tucked, hands in a defensive posture, and time spent on defensive skills will be so much more beneficial than trying to build a big thick neck - after all unless you don’t walk around with your neck flexed

Plenty of dudes with huge thick necks in combat sports have been KTFO’d or even have a rep for glass jaws. Similarly with ab training. If the logic was a more developed musculature protected you far more efficiently, then all these guys with highly developed midsections should be shrugging off body shots - except that doesn’t happen. It HELPS to be conditioned, but nothing that trumps defensive skills.

No one is saying “DON’T CONDITION YOUR NECK” they are saying instead of focusing on how to get the thickest neck possible, you would be better off spending majority of your time on learning skills first and foremost.[/quote]

yes,majority of time should be spent training your sport.neck should be trained also.

devildog_jim · December 19, 2011, 2:32pm

[quote]rundymc wrote:
Isn’t training your neck kind of like training your abs? Will it really take out that much time out of your training?

What’s a few sets at the end of a weight training session? I presume as martial artists we aren’t doing a lot of ‘assistance’ work anyway, so what’s stopping someone from doing some neck work in between sets of lateral raises or curlz.[/quote]

It won’t, and for a serious combat athlete it’s probably already part of their weight training.

This guy doesn’t sound like a serious combat athlete, and if someone walks up to me and say “dude, how do I keep from getting KTFO?” my first answer is “don’t go to places where people want to kick your ass” followed by “but if they do, keep your chin down and don’t get punched in the head.” “Buy a head harness and work your neck” comes in at about #6-7 on the list, and I wouldn’t want someone to preference neck work over fighting thinking that neck work is going to keep him upright.

I did a well-rounded weight program (5/3/1 once I discovered it, a general PL program before that) and fight training with no special neck focus, and never got KO’d (TKO’d on falls but never out cold). I’m 6’2" with a 17.5 in. neck, so while mine isn’t exceptionally big I’m no pencil-neck either. But I firmly believe that my training to absolutely never, ever lift my chin or drop my hands is what kept me upright, and not my neck. If I got suplexed I might have wished for another couple inches on it, but standing up a strong stance and dangerous power with both hands to keep the other guy flinching away from my counters was enough to keep the lights on.

rundymc · December 19, 2011, 3:44pm

Agreed. I read your post as “The time you spend training your neck is better used working on skills.” lol

SKELAC · December 19, 2011, 3:52pm

[quote]devildog_jim wrote:

[quote]rundymc wrote:
Isn’t training your neck kind of like training your abs? Will it really take out that much time out of your training?

What’s a few sets at the end of a weight training session? I presume as martial artists we aren’t doing a lot of ‘assistance’ work anyway, so what’s stopping someone from doing some neck work in between sets of lateral raises or curlz.[/quote]

It won’t, and for a serious combat athlete it’s probably already part of their weight training.

This guy doesn’t sound like a serious combat athlete, and if someone walks up to me and say “dude, how do I keep from getting KTFO?” my first answer is “don’t go to places where people want to kick your ass” followed by “but if they do, keep your chin down and don’t get punched in the head.” “Buy a head harness and work your neck” comes in at about #6-7 on the list, and I wouldn’t want someone to preference neck work over fighting thinking that neck work is going to keep him upright.

I did a well-rounded weight program (5/3/1 once I discovered it, a general PL program before that) and fight training with no special neck focus, and never got KO’d (TKO’d on falls but never out cold). I’m 6’2" with a 17.5 in. neck, so while mine isn’t exceptionally big I’m no pencil-neck either. But I firmly believe that my training to absolutely never, ever lift my chin or drop my hands is what kept me upright, and not my neck. If I got suplexed I might have wished for another couple inches on it, but standing up a strong stance and dangerous power with both hands to keep the other guy flinching away from my counters was enough to keep the lights on.[/quote]

I understand what you are saying.

If we go deeper into the whole neck conditioning stuff,theres more to it than only big neck absorbing hits.
I strongly believe that interaction of eyes,head movement via neck and the body is crucial to the way we move.
Where the head goes,body follows.Its natural.
If you want to change direction QUICKLY,you first jerk your head to that direction and the body follows.head first-feet second.even puching or kicking,head leads the way.it might be not so obvious if you llok at elite athletes as they are trying not to telegraph their moves,but its there.so strength,flexibility and good motor control of yor neck muscles could affect the way we move the whole body.
In standing clinching or floor clinching,strength of the neck becomes even more important,as heas control of your oponent is very important.

IronClaws · December 20, 2011, 4:16pm

The neck and trap musculature is very important but with most muscle the quality of the mass over the size of the mass is probably just as important. You want high quality, tightly knit muscle on the neck, not some kind of puffed up cotton candy that won’t truly protect you.

That being said a large, thick neck obviously helps people absorb blows.

Look at George Chuvalo, not only was the man never knocked out, he was never knocked off his feet. Never went down hard, now watching a lot of his matches he had amazing defense, his footwork/movement ensured that a lot of his blows were landing where HE wanted them to (the fore-head, the head) he very rarely got stiff shots to the chin, none the less when people ask Chuvalo about his ability to withstand powerful blows he points out that he had a thick neck, thick jaw muscles, and that he would spend 30minutes to an hour on the phone, just working his neck the entire time, all the time.

Allegedly a big powerful neck will help you take a shot to the head. It makes sense.

Allegedly big powerful jaw muscles that you can gain from chewing endless wads of gum, this makes less sense to me personally, but hey, it’s probably worth a try too.

Like Chuvalo points out, having a neck like a “stack of dimes” is probably going to get you knocked down.

if you plan to fight another human, working the neck would be very important and it would make little sense to avoid neck training minus some previous spinal injury, in which case fighting is probably a risky hobby.

Hell most people should train their necks better, it’s the reason we see a lot of people with spinal and neck problems in life. In areas where people have to do real labor in the day to day life, like carrying jugs of water or baskets of fruit on the head, they tend to have very good posture, very healthy and vital. the women even have some impressive neck and trap musculature from doing it so often.

a stronger neck is some-thing most people in general would do a lot better to have, to slow down the advance of disease, to improve quality of life, to lower the risk of injury through accident (having a built up neck can prevent some injuries in accidents)

let alone a fighter.

IronClaws · December 20, 2011, 4:25pm

Again, people who claim you need to focus on skill primarily are correct. However, you can develop “the thickest neck possible” or at least “the thickest neck worth having” for a combat athlete with as little as 2 days of training per week, with less than an hour to each of those days.

People who talk about developing skill instead of mass/conditioning/muscle are those people too lazy too do both at the same time. 2-3 days a week, which is 2-3 hours a week, (if you are training HARD you don’t need to put any more hours in) will be enough for ANYONE to gain massive amounts of conditioning/strength/size without cutting into the time for skill training and without “over-training”.

You can do both, which is what most athletes do within their own weight classes. Yeah, spend 99% of your time on skill, sparring, etc. Spend 2 hours a week working your muscles to build up and fix muscular imbalances.

To grow a big neck you don’t need to devote 100hours a week to it. You just need to devote 2 hours maybe 3 hours A WEEK, continously, for months, maybe even years.

Just people too lazy to do both types of training, even when strength training and hypertrophy only takes like 2 hours of intense effort per week. You don’t need to put endless time into developing muscles that they would cut into your skill training, building the “largest neck imaginably” has more to do about how you train your neck, how you eat, than time spend on the neck.

IronClaws · December 20, 2011, 4:36pm

Always people here ramble about strength training to the detriment of skill training. It literally makes no sense because a properly thought out and organized strength and hypertrophy program by definition would only have you working out 2-3 a week for fairly short periods each workout.

Yes, 3 hours out of 168 hour week is just “way too much” to bother with, except that it’s not, it’s basically an eyeblink of time that most of the people saying it cuts into skill too much, would just be spending in a coma in front of the TV anyway.

There’s no reason why you can’t have a neck as thick as mike tyson’s while not cutting into any amount of your skill training, the real reason most people don’t train both is laziness and a lack of will power. It’s uncomfortable to train the neck and incurs a certain amount of risk, there’s never a time that your better off spending it on skill training as opposed to building a larger neck because the two should never truly conflict with each other, either in terms of time or in terms of energy or recovery.

it’s excuse making to say you should choose skill over building a neck, when building a giant neck takes no time out of your week at all, just something that needs to be consistently done, like clockwork for a long time. Its what a lot of the people here don’t understand.

Most people go on about “time constraints” preventing them from working out. Which sounds an awful lot like laziness. Yeah, there’s not 3 hours in the week that these people don’t waste on personal hobbies, TV, or etc. I don’t believe that for 10seconds. Most people who sat down to find 3 free hours a week to do some-thing important when they plan to be combat athletes could do it.

End of story.

Except for all you presidents of the free world, maybe your time is too precious to do strength or hypertrophy training. Other than that there is no excuse.

anon31651765 · December 20, 2011, 6:00pm

[quote]IronClaws wrote:
Always people here ramble about strength training to the detriment of skill training. It literally makes no sense because a properly thought out and organized strength and hypertrophy program by definition would only have you working out 2-3 a week for fairly short periods each workout.

Yes, 3 hours out of 168 hour week is just “way too much” to bother with, except that it’s not, it’s basically an eyeblink of time that most of the people saying it cuts into skill too much, would just be spending in a coma in front of the TV anyway.

There’s no reason why you can’t have a neck as thick as mike tyson’s while not cutting into any amount of your skill training, the real reason most people don’t train both is laziness and a lack of will power. It’s uncomfortable to train the neck and incurs a certain amount of risk, there’s never a time that your better off spending it on skill training as opposed to building a larger neck because the two should never truly conflict with each other, either in terms of time or in terms of energy or recovery.

it’s excuse making to say you should choose skill over building a neck, when building a giant neck takes no time out of your week at all, just something that needs to be consistently done, like clockwork for a long time. Its what a lot of the people here don’t understand.

Most people go on about “time constraints” preventing them from working out. Which sounds an awful lot like laziness. Yeah, there’s not 3 hours in the week that these people don’t waste on personal hobbies, TV, or etc. I don’t believe that for 10seconds. Most people who sat down to find 3 free hours a week to do some-thing important when they plan to be combat athletes could do it.

End of story.

Except for all you presidents of the free world, maybe your time is too precious to do strength or hypertrophy training. Other than that there is no excuse. [/quote]

Says the guy who has absolutely no skill, and wouldn’t know skill training if it bit him in his canadian ass?

LondonBoxer123 · December 20, 2011, 9:38pm

I don’t think anyone has doubted the importance of neck training in a rounded program for a combat athlete. What a great many of us have been saying, in response to a post which essentially said does a strong neck stop you getting knocked out, is that to focus on developing neck muscles as some panacea for the risk of getting knocked out, is naive. As a boxer, I have always trained my neck, but if I had to cut anything from my training (hypothetically) neck training would go long before skill training. The OP seemed to be saying that he was an untrained guy who thought some neck curls would solve his boss problems.

SKELAC · December 20, 2011, 9:39pm

[quote]IronClaws wrote:
The neck and trap musculature is very important but with most muscle the quality of the mass over the size of the mass is probably just as important. You want high quality, tightly knit muscle on the neck, not some kind of puffed up cotton candy that won’t truly protect you.