How to Train Your Neck Muscles: Exercises & Workout

Your neck is the column of muscle and support structures that let you keep your head on straight. Many people only think about theirs when it’s stiff, and if you are like most lifters, neck day is right next to re-racking the weights: not happening.

The thing is, this collection of more than 20 pairs of important muscles is essential for athletic performance, for preventing injuries, and much more. And if you’re a bodybuilder, you can’t neglect your neck and have your head look like an olive on a toothpick.

But when you’ve read this article, you’ll know how your neck muscles work, how to build a functional and impressive-looking neck, and how to put it all together into one effective neck workout.

Neck Muscle Function and Anatomy

Your neck muscles do more than hold your head up. You use them all day, every day, without even thinking about it. They:

• Support your head. Your noggin weighs as much as a bowling ball, 10–12 pounds (~5 kg), so no wonder your neck can get stiff and achy if you don’t take care of it. And when you squat, deadlift, or get tackled, your neck is a big part of what keeps your spine safe.
• Move your head. Your neck muscles let you turn your head in all directions, side to side, up and down, and every angle in between, and tilting your ear to your shoulder.
• Help you breathe. They lift your first and second ribs when you take a deep breath, like opening an accordion.
• Armor you up. Your neck muscles wrap around your airways, blood vessels, and spinal cord to protect them from outside forces.

No single muscle in the neck works in isolation. They’re layered like an onion, some deep, others close to the skin, working together on the front, back, and sides of your cervical spine.

The Main Groups of Neck Muscles

You can group the neck muscles together in many ways. If you open a medical textbook, you might see them bundled into anterior, suprahyoid/infrahyoid, scalene/prevertebral, and posterior groups.

Sounds more like the Necronomicon, and you’re trying to summon a lumbering Lovecraftian nightmare.

I’m not going to do that in this article. Instead, I’m going to make it easy to understand and sort the neck muscles into three main groups based on where they are: the front, the back, and the sides, with each having a specific job to do.

Let’s go through the big ones, and let’s try to do it without sounding like a textbook. Or the Necronomicon.

Front of the Neck (Anterior)

These are the muscles running down the front of your neck. They are your primary flexors, which means that they pull your head forward and down (chin to chest).

• The sternocleidomastoid is the big muscle that looks like a rope when you turn your head to the side. It has two heads and runs diagonally from the mastoid process (that bony lump behind your ear) down to your sternum (that’s the sterno- in sternocleidomastoid) and your clavicle (that’s the -cleido).
  • When only one head contracts, it does two things: it tilts your head to the same side and rotates it to the opposite side. So, your right sternocleidomastoid helps you look over your left shoulder, which is pretty neat.
  • When both contract, they flex your neck, like when you’re doing crunches.
• The scalenes are three muscles that run from the sides of your neck vertebrae down to your first and second ribs. They are the side-benders (that’s lateral flexion) of your head, and help the sternocleidomastoid to turn your head. In addition, they have a cool secondary job: they help lift your upper ribs when you’re breathing hard.

Back of the Neck (Posterior)

These muscles are hidden deep inside, right behind your spine, and run up the back of your neck. They are your extensors, pulling your head back and up.

• The trapezius is better known as an upper back muscle, but it’s also, functionally, a neck muscle. The middle and lower traps are classic back muscles, but the upper part is 100% involved with your neck and head. It helps you tilt your head back, turn it, and shrug your shoulders. Also, “neck pain” might not be pain in the actual neck but in tight traps.
• The splenius muscles are like two thick straps on the back of your neck, underneath the traps. They help extend your head (looking up at the ceiling) and rotate it to the same side (working as a team with the sternocleidomastoid on the opposite side).
• At the base of the skull, we find a group of four small muscles called the suboccipital muscles. These guys leave the heavy lifting to bigger and stronger muscles. Instead, they handle small stuff like the nod you give someone when you agree on something. They can be the culprits behind tension headaches when they get tight and overworked.¹

Side of the Neck (Lateral)

These muscles are primarily responsible for tilting your head from side to side. Many of the muscles I’ve already mentioned do the work here, including the scalenes, sternocleidomastoid, and trapezius. So, they overlap into several groups.

There are way more neck muscles than the above, but I’m not going into all of them, like the geniohyoid or the mylohyoid. They are important in their own right, but not super relevant to normal strength training.

Exercises for Training Your Neck

In this section, we’ll take a look at five of the best neck exercises for building muscle and strength across all major neck regions (front, back, and sides).

By putting them all together, as we’ll do in the next section, you can create a great neck workout.

Keep in mind that your neck is a sensitive area. Start with very light weights, controlled movements, and a good range of motion without pushing for end ranges. If you’ve ever had any neck or cervical spine issues, consult a doctor or physio first.

1. Neck Harness Flexion & Extension

A neck harness is the old-school secret for building a bull neck. It’s basically a web of heavy-duty straps that fits over your head, kind of like a weird, industrial-strength hat. Attached to it is a chain where you can hang weight plates.

If you’re serious about neck training, investing in a quality neck harness allows you to progressively overload and isolate your neck muscles in a controlled range of motion. You’ll also look like the most hardcore person in the weight room.

Depending on how you do them, you can train both the muscles on the back of your neck with extensions and the muscles on the front with flexion.

Pro Tip: Stop just shy of full stretch to keep tension on your neck muscles without stressing your cervical spine and ligaments.

2. Lying Neck Curl

No harness? No problem. The lying neck curl is the most straightforward and direct isolation exercise for the muscles on the front of your neck: the sternocleidomastoid muscles and the deeper neck flexors. It doesn’t require anything but a weight plate (or just your head if you want to start light).

Don’t do little head bobs. Get the full stretch at the bottom (without overextending) and the full contraction at the top to get the most out of the exercise.

Pro Tip: Don’t use your hands to help lift the weight. They are just there to balance the plate.

How to Do Lying Neck Curls

1. Lie on your back on a flat bench with your head hanging slightly off the edge.
2.  Place a folded towel on your forehead for comfort.
3.  Hold a weight plate over the towel with both hands.
4.  Tuck your chin slightly toward your chest. Keep it tucked throughout the movement.
5.  Curl your neck forward, lifting your head up toward your chest. Do not lift your shoulders.
6.  Pause briefly at the top before lowering your head back down slowly and under control to the starting position.
7.  Repeat for reps.

3. Lying Neck Extension

The lying neck extension is the direct counterpart to the neck curl and one of the most direct ways to add size and strength to the back of your neck. It’s great for grapplers, motorsport athletes, fighters, football players, and anyone else who needs a strong neck for performance.

No jerky movements. Pretend you’re moving your head through thick mud.

Pro Tip: Do these towards the end of a workout. You don’t want your neck to be fatigued before you do heavy squats, presses, or deadlifts.

How to Do Lying Neck Extensions

1. Lie face down on a flat bench with your head hanging just off the edge.
2.  Position your body so your chest and stomach are supported and your feet are on the ground for stability.
3.  Place a folded towel on the back of your head for comfort.
4.  Hold a weight plate over the towel using both hands.
5.  Tuck your chin slightly and keep your neck in a neutral position.
6.  Lift your head up by extending your neck and raising the back of your head toward the ceiling.
7.  Pause briefly at the top, squeezing the muscles at the base of your skull, then lower your head back down under control to the starting position.
8.  Repeat for reps.

4. Neck Bridge

The neck bridge (also called the wrestler’s bridge) is a high-level bodyweight exercise that forces dozens of muscles in your neck and posterior chain to work together. It’s the gold standard for building functional, 360° neck strength that’s hard to replicate with weights or bands.

But while it’s a fantastic neck exercise, I would not recommend the full, dynamic neck bridge to 95% of the people in a commercial gym. It’s not a beginner’s exercise. It’s not even an intermediate exercise.

You might have seen YouTube videos of wrestlers or boxers doing dynamic neck bridges, but they’re not beginner-friendly unless your goal is to get friendly with your chiropractor.

Instead, I suggest using a bench to place your head on as a safer and more controlled way to do it. You reduce the extreme extension/flexion angles you get in full bridges, and you can adjust the load by leaning more or lowering your hips.

You can do neck bridges supine (on your back) or prone (on your forehead, face downward). The first trains your neck extensors, while the second trains your flexors.

Pro Tip: The bench. That’s your pro tip.

5. Shrug

“But wait, shrugs are a trap exercise!” Yes, and guess what? The upper traps are visually and functionally a big part of your neck, and shrugs are great for building a yoked look by beefing them up.

They don’t hit the other neck muscles directly or work the neck through its full range of motion, so you need direct neck exercises, too. But for a powerful, tapered look from the shoulders up, shrugs rule. A thick neck on a flat upper back looks plain weird.

Pro Tip: Don’t shy away from lifting straps when you do shrugs. You can train your grip separately, but you don’t want it to limit your traps.

How to Do Shrugs

1. Hold a barbell with straight arms in front of your body.
2. Lift your shoulders straight up as high as possible.
3. Lower your shoulders again.
4. Repeat for reps.

Note: You can do shrugs with dumbbells instead of a barbell. You won’t be able to use as much weight, but you get a more natural range of motion.

Neck Workout for Muscle and Strength

So what does an effective neck workout look like?

For a comprehensive neck workout that covers the front and back of the neck as well as several of the major movements, try our Neck Workout:

Exercise	Sets	Reps
Lying Neck Curl	3	15
Lying Neck Extension	3	15
Shrug	3	12

I’ve put the isolation exercises first because the smaller, more delicate neck flexors/extensors benefit from being trained first while you’re fresh and can focus more on form. But if your priority is trap growth, feel free to do shrugs first.

As you get into more advanced neck training, you can progress the first two exercises by doing neck harness flexion/extension or prone/supine neck bridges instead. But the neck curl/extension is an ideal way to ease into it.

Add this neck session to the end of a workout 2–3 times per week.

Why at the end? If you pre-fatigue your neck muscles, it’s easier to lose form or posture or shift the bar position. So, if you’re doing a heavy session (squats, deadlifts, presses, etc.), do your neck workout after your main lifts, not before.

But if you’re doing a neck-focused session, you can put your neck work first, since that’s the priority and you’re not relying on maximum loads afterward.

This workout is free in our workout log app, StrengthLog. Download it and start tracking your gains today.

Stretches for Tight Neck Muscles

Data from more than 50 studies show that strength training is just as effective as stretching if you want to improve flexibility.² If you lift with a full range of motion (ROM), chances are you don’t need to stretch. You can if you want to and like how it feels, but it’s not strictly necessary.

But when it comes to the neck muscles, how often do most lifters use a full ROM? If anything, form guidelines recommend you keep your cervical spine relatively neutral for safety and stability. That means you aren’t moving into full flexion, extension, lateral flexion, or rotation under load.

You activate them through stabilization, but they’re not being challenged through their entire movement arcs the way, say, your hamstrings are in a Romanian deadlift. Besides, most people don’t train their neck muscles dynamically at all, let alone through a full range of motion.

If you do, like with the exercises and workout I’ve detailed above, that’s awesome; you’re ahead of the curve. You will maintain and likely improve neck flexibility, and dedicated static stretching isn’t strictly necessary for mobility.

That being said, stretching can still be valuable even if not for raw ROM gains. Doing some stretches for the neck can feel great and relieve tension after a long day at the desk, even if you train your neck. And that can be reason enough.

If you want to stretch your neck, you don’t need a complicated routine. Try these after your workout or on your rest days:

Neck Stretch: Nodding

From a seated or standing position, slowly move your head up and down like you’re nodding. This movement dynamically stretches your neck flexors and extensors in the sagittal plane.

Neck Stretch: Shaking Head

From a seated or standing position, slowly turn your head from side to side like you’re shaking your head “no.” This movement dynamically stretches the muscles on the front and side of your neck in the transverse plane.

Neck Stretch: Clasped Hands

From a seated or standing position, clasp your hands together behind your head and slowly pull your head down toward your chest to get a stretch in your neck and upper back. This statically stretches the muscles on the back of your neck in the sagittal plane.

Neck Stretch: Ear to Shoulder

From a seated or standing position, bring one arm over your head and reach for the opposite ear. Gently pull your head toward your shoulder and feel a stretch in your neck. This is a lateral flexion stretch of the cervical spine, so it’s happening in the frontal plane.

Frequently Asked Questions About How to Train Your Neck Muscles

Final Rep

And there we go! By now, you have a good grasp of your neck muscles, some of the best exercises for these guys, and how you can combine them into one awesome workout.

Remember to download our workout log app to train this workout (and many more) and track your gains. Increase the weight you use in each exercise to make sure you enjoy continued muscle growth and strength gains.

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Do you want to read more of our muscle group training guides? You can find them all here.

Last reviewed: 2025-10-03

References

1. Anatomy, Head and Neck, Suboccipital Muscles. StatPearls Publishing, January 1, 2023.
2. Sports Med. 2023 Jan 9;53(3):707–722. Resistance Training Induces Improvements in Range of Motion: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.