5 Minutes

Time to Get Your Neck Big

Dan Rileywas the Head Strength Coach at Penn State University.  He was also the Head Strength Coach at the Washington Redskins, the Houston Texans, and at West Point.  While with the Redskins, Riley served as an integral part of three Super Bowl and four NFC Championships.  While at Penn State they competed for the National Championship in the Sugar Bowl.

Dan Riley had a simple, yet extremely effective approach to neck training. Connected to each neck machine he secured a 60 second timer with a bell. The athlete began each exercise by hitting the start button.

The athletes goal was 12 perfect repetitions in 60 seconds.  Each repetition was done with a pause at the top and was performed maintaining muscular tension as well as addressing  speed and momentum (no bouncing or throwing weight).  12 repetitions each done in 5 seconds was the lifters rule.

Dan would admonish the athlete for not performing repetitions perfectly.  Incorrect form means not activating all the available muscle fibers.  “Which muscle fibers in your neck are most important to protect you on Sunday?“, Coach Riley would ask.  The players learned to respond “All of them.”

When the reps were exactly correct, meaning the time was achieved, the weight and reps would be recorded and then the weight raised for the next workout.  The same concept and form was used in four directions on the 4 way neck machine, plus a shrugging exercise.  Every single rep, every single workout was coached.

You will be surprised how difficult this is and how strong the athlete becomes.  A bigger stronger neck dissipates force and lowers the subconcussive forces… so Get those necks Strong.

Students participate in study to lower concussive and subconcussive forces

April 17, 2011 7:37 PM

Molly McGowan/Times-News

Every 20 minutes, a different young man enters a small room in Elon University’s Koury Athletic Center looking energetic, and 20 minutes later the same man exits the room dripping and red-faced. These students aren’t shaping their calves on treadmills or curling their biceps – they’re strengthening their necks.

Each Monday, Wednesday and Friday for the past four weeks, 11 students have been visiting this little room, getting their necks measured and pumping iron with the part of the body few incorporate into their exercise routine. The students are subjects of Ralph Cornwell’s study, “Project Neck,” which researches the effects of consistent neck conditioning, with the goal of preventing damage from concussions.

Cornwell, a Ph.D. candidate in health promotion/human performance at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, is conducting what is — as far as anyone knows — the only study aimed at preventing concussions, instead of fixing them after they occur. His research will also create a neck-strengthening protocol to which Cornwell hopes strength and conditioning coaches will have to adhere in the future.

“This will be the culmination of (my) doctoral dissertation,” said Cornwell. He’s performing his research at Elon because he lives in Greensboro and said, “The atmosphere here is very conducive to learning and experimentation. You get better quality.”

For the dissertation, Cornwell said he will apply the laws of physics to his research’s resulting statistics, and construct a mathematical model that will show the different outcomes of concussion-inducing forces on people who followed his protocol, and those who did not. He said this is the only way to measure the differences without hitting his subjects over the head, which he’s not about to do.

The idea is that the muscles of a strengthened neck will disperse the kinetic energy of a hard force. “The stronger your neck is, the more likely it is to dissipate the energy from a blow,” said Matt Kavalek, Cornwell’s lead research assistant and a sophomore at Elon.

Stronger neck and back muscles would mean increased support, decreasing the odds of a blow jarring the brain inside the skull after a hard blow, which causes a concussion. Cornwell likened strengthened neck and back muscles to an organic “cowboy collar” used by football players for neck support.

Cornwell and Kavalek are already four weeks into the study and are seeing results in the 11 students following the strict protocol Cornwell developed. Three devices are used, two of which are still prototypical, for various exercises focusing on the muscles in the neck or back.

Kavalek said Cornwell worked with anatomists at Wake Forest University to make sure each movement of every exercise has a direct effect on a key neck or back muscle. The exercises include the “tilt,” the “nod,” “laterals,” the “shrug,” the “shrug with head turn,” the “Kelso” and the “Hise shrug.”

But before a study participant launches into his first set of head tilts, Kavalek measures the circumference of his neck, which increases as the muscles gain strength. The study uses only male Elon students, since men aged 18-24 create the best test pool for measurable neck gain, said Cornwell. Since women don’t have the same high testosterone levels as men, their necks wouldn’t get thicker if they did the exercises, and Cornwell’s study needed a physical way to measure progress.

After having his neck measured, the study participant sits in the first prototypical device, a five-way neck machine, and rests the back of his head against a cushion. “It’s the only machine where you can train the muscles in the head and the neck,” said Cornwell. The subject performs the “tilt” and tips his head backward just 25 degrees, which works only the capital muscles — the neck muscles connected to the first two vertebra of the spine — and not the back muscles.

“It’s such a subtle movement, but the back of his head will be on fire,” said Cornwell, as Kavalek counted out 12 repetitions. The subject’s neck is burning because he’s literally lifting weights with his neck. At first, every participant starts each exercise with 10 pounds, but Cornwell increases the weight in increments after the student is able to complete a set with 10 pounds, then 15, and so on.

“We needed a baseline everyone could complete,” said Cornwell. “All the movements are slow and patrolled, so no one gets hurt.” He and Kavalek spot the test subject as he moves onto the “nod,” which is a 10-degree movement forward, as if “you’re acknowledging a friend,” said Cornwell. Then the student performs “laterals,” which is the same movement but to the left and right sides instead of forward.

The next movements, also on the five-way neck machine, target the trapezius – the muscle spanning the neck, shoulders and back, and reaching all the way down to the thoracic (twelfth) vertebrae. The subject performs a “shrug,” and then a “shrug with head turn,” turning the uppermost part of the trapezius, which Cornwell explained happens naturally when you pick up something heavy in a shrug position.

Fifteen seconds after the last set of shrugs, the subject moves to the three-way row machine for the “Kelso,” which is a movement pulling the scapula together and works all the muscles in the back. It’s the movement that test subject Thomas Emery, a sophomore majoring in psychology, said is his least favorite. “You feel it everywhere in your back,” he said.

As Emery fights losing his grips on the machine’s handles during his “Kelso” set, Kavalek cheers him on. “You’re almost there. This is your best set ever. You just need to get angry.” Sweat drips from Emery’s chin as Cornwell moves him to his last movement, the “Hise shrug.” Using squat bar equipment, Emery shrugs with the weighted bar across his back, again targeting his trapezius.

At the end of his training session, Emery is out of breath, which Cornwell said is the norm for most participants. He said he thinks many assumed training one’s neck would be easy, but found out after signing up for the study that it’s not. Kavalek compares the exercises to training a bicep: “If you put (your muscles) against a load, they’re going to get stronger.”

Despite the difficulty, Emery plans to continue neck-strengthening exercises even after the study is completed in another four weeks. And it’s Cornwell’s hope that the exercises Emery and the 10 other Elon students are performing will become part of a protocol required by certifying sports organizations, and will eventually trickle down to the high school and middle school level.

“It’s not an easy protocol by any means,” Cornwell said. But, since no other protocols for preventing concussions exist – in the athletic arena or otherwise – he said, “At least (it will) give them something to go on.”

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Tags: and, concussion, conditioning, cornwell, elon, faster, fixed, gittleson, impact, neck

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Do You Want To Run Better?

If you want to run better train your neck musculature.                                                                                                                                                

Scalenes

The anterior, medial and posterior scalenes firmly fix to the frist and second ribs.  The scalenes aid in deep respiration, something we certainly do in heavy running.  The Scalene muscles are active with the diaphragm even at rest and can be considered a major muscle of respiration.

Sternocleidomastoid

The sternocleidomastoids are accessory inspiratory muscles and are quiet during normal breathing.  They contract towards the end of a maximum inspiration increasing the diameter of the chest. The sterno and scalene muscles are extremely important in laborious breathing and tough exercise.

The work of breathing increases disproportionately so that respiratory muscles take a larger and larger percentage of the total oxygen consumption.  This begins to happen at somewhere between 50% and 75% of maximal oxygen uptake.

Any muscle in the human body can be made to fatigue including the muscles used to assist breathing.  In a laboratory setting with spirometry equipment, one can show muscle fatigue after two minutes of maximum ventilation breathing

Studies indicate that respiratory skeletal muscles, like muscles of the limbs, under conditions of intense activity, lead to respiratory failure.

A stronger more muscular neck aids in breathing and makes a stronger runner.  When you neglect neck training you neglect fitness. Training starts from the head down so Get Strong.

Shawnee Academy, Louisville Kentucky

Shrugs on the 5 Way Neck

Tags: Neck Training

Project Neck Rolls On!

Project Neck is off and running!

Project Neck, now being conducted at Elon University in North Carolina.  Test subjects are working hard.

The Project Neck Lab consists of two state-of the- art pieces of strength training equipment being provided by Pendulum of Rogers Athletic. We have a compact squat rack and several hundreds of pounds of weight and a olympic bar.

Project Neck differs from any other concussive forces study in the fact that this is the only study to ever research the head and neck together. The only study to induce hypertrophy of the capital muscle of the head and neck. The only study to examine  neck cylinder size and how that size difference lowers concussive forces.

Project Neck’s goal is to build a better dissipator  of kinetic energy by anatomical and morphological changes of the musculature of the head and neck through resistance training.

Project Neck is a simple study. We want to lower concussive and subconcussive forces.

We believe Project Neck to be a noble cause.  Project Neck is the only research study looking at what can be done  prior to the concussive episode.  If Project Neck’s research helps to lower dangerous forces to the brain through an established protocol we will feel our time to be well spent.  A protocol would allow an athlete to prepare for the rigors of his or her sport.  Concussions will always be a risk of playing competitive sports and the only cure for concussions is to stop playing sports.

The mission of every sport coach, strength coach or parent should be to protect the athlete first. Project Neck’s research results hope to give coaches and parents the tools to prepare their athletes for competition.

Take A Bite Out Of Shoulder Injuries

Musculus Deltoideus and MasseterMusculus Deltoideus or what we refer to as the ‘delts’ or ‘deltods’ is a large triangular muscle covering the shoulder joint and serving to abduct, flex, extend and rotate the arm.

The Masseter muscle in proportion to its size is the most powerful muscles in the body.  It raises the jaw and clenches the teeth.

There is a co-activation of jaw and neck-shoulder muscles during jaw activities and the presence of neuromuscular connections between the jaw and neck regions.

Jaw and neck muscle actions are elicited and synchronized by neural commands in common for both the jaw and the neck motor systems and that these commands are preprogrammed, particularly at fast speed.

When you clench down on your mouthguard with your powerful masseter muscle or stiffen your jaw hard to protect yourself prior to contact, the bracing also increases the EMG activity in the musculus deltoideus shoulder region.

Studies earlier in this decade got many coaches fired up about training with mouthguards in the weight room, since studies were showing increased masseter force on a mouthguard improved shoulder strength.

The bottom line is Getting the Head and Neck muscles Strong will go along way in protecting an athlete’s shoulders during contact.

 

Tags: Neck Training, Strength Training

Fixed Versus Mobile

Part of activating muscle is having it.

The Pashby Sports Safety Award is an award presented in Canada to recognize and honor people who make sports and recreational activities safer from catastrophic injuries, which typically involve the eyes, spine or brain.  Dr. Karen Johnston MD, PHD was given the Safety Award for her outstanding work to prevent injuries, most specifically concussions.

She is also Director of the Concussion Program at the McGill Sports Medicine Clinic.

Dr. Karen Johnston says that, “The force required to concuss a fixed head is almost twice that required to concuss a mobile head”.

Mouthguard companies understand that by activating head and neck muscles at the time of impact rotation will be decreased, which will lead to less harmful movement of the brain inside the skull.

By being able to clench down hard on a mouthguard activates the head and neck muscles and stabilizes the head.

Ralph Cornwell is taking this one step further,  building bigger stronger cylinders by developing the musculature around the head, neck and thoracic spine. The developed muscles dissipate more force and ‘clenching’ on the mouthguard with a stronger head, neck and jaw augments the value of dissipation by stabilizing movement.  This further reduces the subconcussive forces involved in causing a concussion.

A Virginia Tech doctoral canidate Ralph Cornwell, is doing research at Elon University in North Carolina.

He is not only building necks, but a mathmatical model of force dissapation.

Build head, neck and trap muscle to dissipate force and fix the head to lower concussive forces and Get Strong.

Rearch Study PROJECT NECK Expands To Elon University

Ralph Cornwell, Jr. PhD. Candidate from Virginia Tech announced today of the expansion of his research study looking at lowering concussive and subconcussive forces with anatomical changes to the  neck, trapezius and upper back , accomplished through resistance training.

Cornwell’s research appropriately named Project Neck,  is charged with creating a protocol that an athlete can use to lower concussive and subconcussive forces. Cornwell is using state of the art Pendulum equipment from Rogers Athletic.                                                                                                                                                                                      

Project Neck expanded it’s research from Virginia Tech to Elon University, located in North Carolina. Cornwell is working in conjunction with Elon professors Dr. Eric Hall and Dr. Paul Miller of the Neuroscience Department at Elon University.

Dr. Paul Miller      Dr. Eric Hall

Project Neck is the only study looking at preventative sports medicine. Addressing the concussive and subconcussive forces before the athlete concusses. A great amount of research is  ongoing at several universities in the United States involving concussion treatment and cause and effect. Project Neck, to the best of my knowledge, is the only proactive research study examining  the effects of anatomical and morphological changes in the human body and how these changes lower those forces.

The 8 week research study will use a protocol that involves hypertrophy of the muscles of the head and neck. The protocol also addresses the trapezius and the muscles of the upper back. Cornwell is also looking for circumference changes in the upper and lower regions of the neck. Baseline measurements taken at the beginning of the research will be compared to measurements  at the completion of the study.  Strength increases in the head and neck region will also be recorded each training session. The adaptations to the head and neck will increase the stiffness level of that area making for a more resilient athlete.

Lead Research Assistant Matt Kavalek takes baseline measurements

Cornwell’s hope is to create a basic protocol that  coaches of athletes or even  parents could use to help combat what The Center of Disease Control and Prevention calls a National Concussion Epidemic. Cornwell explains, “the only way to stop concussions in athletes is to stop playing their particular sport. If we can not stop concussions then we must prepare our athletes,youth to professional, for the rigors of their sport.” The process is really a combination of the best helmets, mouth pieces and coaching technique. The variable that I believe we are overlooking is the head and neck. An athlete can still sustain a concussion even while wearing a helmet.

The stronger athlete will be better prepared for contact or collision. Subcocussive forces are also a health problem that must be addressed. The low level bumps and dings an athlete receives in any given season can be a cause for concern later in life. Research has shown that subcocussive forces can cause long term brain injuries well after the athlete stops playing competitive sports. Concussions can be caused by the accumulation of these small hits too. When we watch sporting events on television it would make sense that the extremely hard collisions  we view would be the culprit of the concussion crisis. This not the case, as further research is conducted, scientists are finding the subconcussive forces to be just as damaging as the violent collisions. The problem with subconcussive forces is this; you don’t always notice them as an athlete playing a sport or as a coach observing a practice or game.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention along with the National Institute of Health agree that America has a National Concussion Epidemic. These two goverment agencies are only called upon when there is a health crisis or problem with our food supply on a national level. If there were a Flu Epidemic, scientists would work towards a vaccine and begin inoculating the population with a cure. The Concussion Epidemic has been dealt with in a different manner. Researcher observe the cause of concussions and study how to best treat a concussion after the person has injured his or her brain.

Cornwell’s research takes a different approach towards the concussion epidemic. He believes we should inoculate our youth playing sports and their college and professional counterparts. Cornwell explains, ” I do not believe we are curing the concussion problem in America with any protocol designed to give the athlete the ability to lower  concussive forces. What I do believe is this, if we do nothing we are not giving our athletes any means of  resistance to concussive or subconcussive forces. If  my study helps to lower concussive forces  by 1 percent, it is a step in the right direction. If we raise the level by which subconcussive  forces can not harm the brain, this is also a step in the right direction.”

Project Neck’s protocol is time efficient, purposeful and presumed effective. The protocol can be performed in under 20 minutes twice a week. This is not a large amount of time out of an athletes day when we are concerned with brain injury.  I want this simple study to be the genius of larger research studies looking at protecting the athlete first and foremost. Researchers, athletic trainers and coaches will tell you we can do nothing to protect our athletes. If my research proves nothing at all but spurs on further research, then what harm was done? That’s what science is all about, the search for the truth.

I would like to thanks Dr. Hall and Dr. Miller for their support. I would also like to thank Elon University for allowing me to use their facilities and their generous hospitality.

Strengthen The Head And Jaw

Strengthen The Head And Jaw

The infrahyoids are made up of four muscles; three of which attach to the hyoid bone, the omohyoid, the sternohyoid, and the thyrohyoid.  They lie right over the trachea.  The infrahyoids can be and are often damaged in whiplash.

Infrahyoids: flex the neck.

Suprahyoids: open the jaw.

The hyoids are involved in chewing and movements of the tongue.

The hyoids are heavily involved in posture and a weakness in these muscles can cause many interesting problems from how we stand, how our back feels to cervical neck pains.

What is interesting is that the suprahyoid and infrahyoid muscles attach to the hyoid bone, the only free floating bone in our body.

Musculature attaching above and below this free floating structure allows for a dampening effect that helps limit oscillations of the head.

 

In physics, damping is any effect that tends to reduce the amplitude of oscillations and the hyoids can act as a damping device.

 

Using the specialized cam on the Pendulum 5 Way Neck or… new… 4 Way Neck allows an athlete to isolate these natural force dissipators.

Train the muscles that move and protect the Head as well as train the Neck muscles, Get your athletes Strong.

 

 

Tatum High School Weight Room,Tatum Texas

 

Tags: Neck training

The Best Way Of Increasing Your Ability To Squat

The Best Way Of Increasing Your Ability To Squat

Tyler Hobson grew up in Anchorage, Alaska.  His experiences, education and his participation in competitive powerlifting led him to become the inventor of Pendulum Strength.  He now lives in Conroe, Texas and continues to design the world’s finest exercise machines. Tyler explains, the Pendulum Squat Pro.

I made the Power Squat Pro to capture all the muscle stimulation of a free weight squat.

There are many athletes who have mastered the squat and are seemingly built to perform this exercise flawlessly. There are many more who have great difficulties due to bio-mechanical weaknesses, injuries from back and shoulder to hands. There are others whose limb lengths are not conducive to the exercise.

Those athletes with issues must be closely monitored to illicit gains. The Pro Squat was made to address all the aforementioned problems and to maximize growth and strength.

The patented floating yoke allows lifters of all limb lengths to position their bodies  in the same manner as the most bio-mechanically advantaged squatter.

As the yoke floats back and forth, tension is maintained on the targeted area and the ‘core’ is activated throughout the entire movement.

 

A unique benefit of the machine is the multiple loading positions. The lower weight horns have a strength curve that increase muscular tension as the lifter rises making the exercise more difficult towards the top of the movement. Training this way is similar to training with bands or chains. You will find the resistance is more appropriate for strength training as the design of the machine and its low horn position was made for what the bands and chains are trying to accomplish.

The upper weight horns, when loaded, have a strength curve that increases tension as the lifter lowers his body.  This increases stimulation to the hips and glutes.  Athletes who train in this manner get very strong in the low position which solves many of the concerns that athletes have in squatting.

If you evenly load the machine utilizing the upper and lower weight horns one strength curve comes on and the other drops away and the exercise becomes a barbell squat.

There is no doubt the Pendulum Squat Pro is the best way of increasing your ability to squat.  Is the Pendulum Squat Pro better than a free weight squat?

If you ask those who have the device you are going to be very surprised with their answer.

When you are in Conroe,Texas stop by and Get your ability to squat Stronger.

 

Tags: The Squat, Pendulum Squat Pro

100 Yard Shuttles

Times For The 100 Yard Shuttle

100 Yard Shuttle 5/10/15/20

5 yards and back/10 yards and back/15 yards and back/20yards and back

OL/DL = 23 seconds

LB/RB/QB/TE/SPEC = 21 seconds

WR/DB = 19 seconds

60 seconds between sets

Rogers Tred Sled

Tags: Running