- 6 months ago
jeff nipard
Datelle
sab ko helo! min ek canida ka qadarti paro badi balder hon or bin alaqwami sath par qaabl paur lieuter hon jas min bio kimasteri/kimasteri min bi es si hay or sciens ka shauq hay. min taqriban 20 sal se tarbiyat kar raha hon. majhe amid hay kah aap meri wedus se ltaf andoz hon ge!
Datelle
sab ko helo! min ek canida ka qadarti paro badi balder hon or bin alaqwami sath par qaabl paur lieuter hon jas min bio kimasteri/kimasteri min bi es si hay or sciens ka shauq hay. min taqriban 20 sal se tarbiyat kar raha hon. majhe amid hay kah aap meri wedus se ltaf andoz hon ge!
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SportsTranscript
00:00About a year ago, I convinced myself that I'd look a lot more jacked, especially in clothes,
00:09if I started training my neck. This was brought on by the simple observation that most jacked dudes
00:14have bigger necks. Just take this photo of Magic Mike, for example. That's what he actually looks
00:19like on the left, and on the right, his neck was photoshopped to be smaller. It should be
00:23obvious which version looks more masculine and muscular, and I think this is why training your
00:27neck and traps directly can make a massive difference in how jacked you look in clothes
00:31and how masculine your face looks. So this photo of me was taken on January 1st, 2016, and this photo
00:37was taken a year later after about a year of admittedly on and off direct neck training.
00:42And the traps are another muscle that can drastically affect how muscular you look from the front,
00:45side, rear, and again, especially in clothes. So before we get into exactly how to make these
00:51muscles grow best, let's quickly cover their basic anatomy first. So let's start with the muscles on
00:56the front. The biggest medius muscle on the neck is the sternocleidomastoid. It has two heads which
01:01originate at the top of the sternum and the top of the clavicle, respectively, inserting on the
01:05mastoid process at the base of the skull, and it performs forward flexion, lateral flexion, and rotation
01:11of the neck. A little to the side and a bit deeper, you have the three scalene muscles acting together
01:16to perform forward and lateral flexion, much like the sternocleidomastoid. Moving more to the back of
01:21the neck, by far the biggest muscle is the trapezius, or the traps for short. The upper traps
01:26originate at the occipital bone on the back of the head, and then fan out and down to insert on the
01:30outer part of the clavicle, or collarbone. And they contract to perform primarily scapular elevation,
01:35like shrugging, but also neck extension, lateral flexion, and rotation. The fibers of the mid-traps
01:40run straight across and contract to perform primarily scapular retraction, like in a barbell row,
01:45with the lower fibers performing scapular depression and retraction. Just keep in mind that all these
01:50muscles tend to function as a unit, not in isolation. So still on the back of the head you have two
01:54splenous muscles, which extend the neck, and the levator scapulae muscle, which is buried a bit
01:58deeper and functions primarily to elevate the scapula, again like in a shrug. And there are a
02:03bunch of other smaller muscles, like the semispinalis, multifidus, longissimus, and others that all
02:08basically help to extend the neck, but we won't focus on these. It's commonly heard that if you simply
02:12focus on heavy compound movements in your training, regularly doing heavy squats, deadlifts,
02:17bent rows, and so on, you'll have no problem building a thick neck. But the research doesn't
02:21really agree with this. A study by Conley and colleagues from the University of Georgia split
02:2522 men into one of two groups. One group performed a periodized, four-day-per-week resistance training
02:31program for 12 weeks. The training program was pretty rigorous, including exercises like the squat,
02:35Romanian deadlift, and even trap-focused movements like mid-thigh deadlifts, bent rows, shrugs, all loaded
02:41in the 3-10 rep range for 3-5 sets. The other group did exactly the same thing, except they added
02:46three sets of 10 rep head extensions every week. At the end of the 12 weeks, MRI was used to measure
02:51neck hypertrophy, and the results were pretty staggering. Despite all the heavy compound
02:55movements used in the regular protocol, there was zero increase in cross-sectional area of the neck
03:00muscles after 12 weeks. But adding in just nine weekly sets of direct neck extension work led to
03:05a 13% increase in total neck cross-sectional area, which is pretty impressive for only 12 weeks,
03:10and led the authors to conclude that it doesn't appear that the isometric actions required for
03:14stabilization during conventional resistance exercises are of sufficient intensity to elicit
03:19neck muscle hypertrophy. However, looking at other research, such as that from Sunstrup et al.,
03:24it's clear that the neck muscles are activated quite highly indirectly from other exercises,
03:28such as the lateral raise, where the splenous and trap muscles both reached over 90%
03:32EMG activity relative to momentary voluntary contraction in a set taken to failure. Granted,
03:37activation and hypertrophy are not necessarily synonymous, but it seems most plausible that,
03:42all else equal, activating a muscle to a greater degree should hypertrophy it to a greater degree.
03:47So it seems that, even if not required for growth, including at least one neck extension-based
03:51exercise, such as plate-loaded extensions or partner-assisted extensions, two to three times
03:56per week makes most sense to maximize growth of the rear neck musculature. I found that using a head
04:00harness can make loading a little easier, or if you'd rather not do this publicly, you can use a towel to
04:05provide resistance from home. Because loading the neck muscles heavily might put undesired strain on
04:09the connective tissues of the neck, I'd suggest starting out with moderate reps in the 10-15 rep
04:14range, with sets taken close to, or to failure, with good control so that a full spectrum of motor
04:19units are involved. So what about the front and sides of the neck? A 2010 paper by Aklund et al.,
04:24looked at moment arms for the neck and found that the sternocleidomastoid showed the greatest
04:28flexion and lateral bending capacity. So if the goal is to make the neck bigger from the front and the side,
04:32we should focus on growing this muscle. A 2006 study on Navy command recruits found that performing
04:37exercises that train neck forward flexion, lateral flexion, and extension three times per week led to
04:43big improvements in neck strength, and while neck circumference did increase on average by 1.4
04:48centimeters, it wasn't enough to reach statistical significance, probably because of the small sample
04:52size of 10. So in the absence of solid data, I'd recommend performing neck flexion exercises such as
04:57plate-loaded neck curls or partner-assisted neck curls at least two to three times per week in the 10-15
05:02rep range. And with the plate-loaded curl, you want to make sure you're not using your arms to hold
05:06the weight up, let the plate rest fully on your forehead using a cloth for comfort if needed,
05:10and focus on curling only with your neck, resisting the downward motion of the plate on the negative.
05:14I see lateral flexion-based movements as more of an optional exercise since the sternocleidomastoid
05:19wraps around the side of the head, meaning that forward flexion-based exercises should cover the
05:23side dimension as well. However, adding in a few plate-loaded lateral neck curls won't hurt,
05:27just be careful not to go too heavy as the neck muscles are weaker in lateral flexion.
05:31Rotation can also be trained, however, the equipment needed to train it safely and effectively can be
05:36tough to come by, and other, in my opinion, more advanced exercises like neck bridges seem to be
05:40effective for neck strengthening in athletes. However, I personally prefer the more bodybuilding-based
05:45movements that use weighted resistance since they're proven to be effective without needing to
05:49contort yourself into a potentially uncomfortable position. So what about the traps? Well, similar to the
05:54neck, it's commonly touted that if you just do heavy deadlifts, your traps will blow up,
05:58and certainly it makes some sense. The traps isometrically contract quite forcefully when
06:02performing heavy deadlifts in order to stabilize the scapula and keep the upper back in extension.
06:07And this is supported by some EMG data by Carbital, showing that upper trap muscle activity was 97%
06:13at the point of knee passage versus just 88% off the floor, indicating that training the top half of the
06:19deadlift, such as by doing rack pulls, may be better for optimizing trap recruitment. In addition,
06:24research from Luke Beggs showed that heavier loads were, unsurprisingly, more effective at
06:28activating the upper traps, and while using a mixed grip didn't lead to significant left-to-right
06:32activation differences for the traps, Begg speculated that this finding can't necessarily
06:37be extrapolated to the entire trap muscle because the measurement is limited to the relatively small
06:41area covered by the placement of the electrode, and went on to suggest that to prevent asymmetries,
06:46it may be of benefit to use a double overhand grip, and when grip becomes a limiting factor,
06:50ergogenic aids such as lifting straps, chalk, and gloves can be used, or a hook grip. However, while
06:55perhaps sufficient for growth in some, isometrically training the traps through heavy deadlifts alone
07:00may not be enough to maximize growth of the traps, especially since other research indicates that
07:05eccentric muscle actions are required to maximize muscle hypertrophy. A landmark 1994 study by Johnson
07:10and colleagues found that because of the orientation of the upper trap fibers, they can't effectively
07:15elevate the scapula when the arm is in neutral, suggesting that the shrug is best executed with
07:19the arms in at least 30 degrees abduction, an idea supported by a 2013 study by Pisari et al, which
07:25found that a dumbbell shrug performed at 30 degrees abduction, or in other words with the arms further
07:30out to the sides, was more effective at activating the upper trap fibers than the traditional shrug.
07:34It's worth noting though that a limitation of this study could be the fact that the same loads were used
07:38for both conditions. It seems to me that it may simply be harder to do a shrug with the arms more out to the side,
07:44and perhaps a relative loading scheme would have led to different results. In any case,
07:48there still seems to be at least good anatomical grounds for modifying the shrug so that the arms
07:52are more abducted. A few creative uses of the dumbbell shrug have been proposed by specialist
07:56sports physiotherapist Adam Meekins, such as the overhead dumbbell shrug and monkey shrug,
08:01which have proven effective in practice. However, a recent 2016 paper published in the Journal of
08:05Manual Therapy found the same, albeit high, upper trap activity in the traditional shrug and the overhead shrug,
08:11suggesting that there might not be a special benefit to the overhead shrug despite sound
08:15theoretical basis. One movement I've been using lately is what I'm calling the lying rope shrug,
08:20where I lie down and shrug down and back using a rope that you're actively aiming to pull apart.
08:25I feel a really strong upper trap contraction when doing these. The upright row is another moneymaker
08:30for the traps, with one study showing it to outperform the seated cable row, barbell row, and lat pulldown
08:35in terms of VMG activation. And as I mentioned in my Shoulder Science Explained video, a wider,
08:39two times shoulder width grip on the barbell upright row has been shown to increase activation
08:43of both the upper and mid traps relative to a narrow and shoulder width grip. However,
08:48to avoid shoulder impingement issues, it's advised to keep elbow elevation below shoulder height.
08:52Similarly, rope face pulls are very effective at recruiting the traps when performed with
08:56scapular retraction, and they offer a different loading plane than the shrug, which could function
09:00as yet another stimulus for maximizing growth. And finally, while I wanted this video to focus on the
09:06neck and upper trap area, I'd be remiss to fail to mention the tried and true rowing movements in
09:11a video on the traps. And indeed, rowing exercises of all varieties have been substantiated as effective
09:16movements in the literature, especially for the mid traps. And interestingly, a 2004 paper by Lehman and
09:21colleagues showed no statistically significant difference in mid trap activation between a seated
09:26row performed with and without scapular retraction, indicating that the row is really effective at
09:31activating this muscle group regardless of scapular position. So what about frequency and volume?
09:36I think that the neck, like any muscle, is best trained at least two times per week. However,
09:40because it can be a chore to train, I suggest that even once per week is better than not training it
09:44at all. And research has shown that hitting it three times per week is effective. In my experience,
09:48because neck soreness can literally be a pain in the neck, training the neck more frequently with
09:53slightly less volume per session is the best way to take advantage of the repeated bout effect and reduce
09:58muscle soreness while maximizing results. Because most people will be new to neck training,
10:02I think Helms' recommendation to aim for 40 to 70 reps per session with both a flexion and extension
10:07based exercise is a good place to start. As far as traps go, I think that for the sake of recovery
10:12and safety, heavy deadlifts should be performed no more than once per week, if at all, given the ability
10:17to effectively target the traps through a variety of other movements that can be performed more
10:21frequently. Otherwise, I think hitting the traps two to three times a week should be sufficient,
10:24but keep in mind when designing your weekly routine that many other back exercises and shoulder
10:29exercises will have a lot of carry over to the traps, so be careful not to let weekly volume get
10:33carried away. As a starting place, I'd recommend adding in six to ten extra sets per week of an upper
10:38trap isolation movement that you're not already doing, and titrate in more volume from there as you
10:43assess your recovery and progress. And with these new concepts in mind, I hope the next time you're at an
10:47event wearing a dress shirt, you look a little bit more like you lift. What's going on everyone?
10:57Throughout the course of making this video, I decided that I wanted to get a little bit more
11:00diligent about my own neck and trap training, so I wrote myself an eight-week training program that
11:05I ended up turning into a complete neck and trap training guide with all of the scientific information,
11:10anatomy, biomechanics, and all the exercise science included in this video in one place. And I've also
11:15included additional information about periodization and specific programming variables that I didn't
11:19get into in the video. So I've made that full neck and trap training guide available on my website,
11:24which you can get to at the link in the description. For the first week of the launch, it's going to be
11:27just $9.99, and then after that it'll go up to $14.99. I'm going to be documenting this on my Snapchat
11:32and Instagram story, and every week I'll give a quick update on how my training is going and how my
11:37progress is going. And I'd love for you guys to do the same. I've included an email in the neck and trap
11:41guide. You can email your starting photos and your starting neck measurement too, and then
11:45after the eight weeks, take another set of photos and another measurement of your neck because there
11:49isn't a whole lot of data on neck training. And so if I can gather some of my own data in the form
11:54of you guys, that would be very much appreciated. And also it gives you guys a way to be accountable
11:58and for me to be accountable as well. And this is a 30 page document that includes 12 scientific
12:02references, full eight week training program. Everything is laid out. For now, that's going to
12:06conclude this one. So thank you guys so much for watching. Subscribe to the channel if you're new,
12:10like the video if you liked it, and I'll see you guys in the next one.
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