Continued from here.
I’ve been exploring the idea that deep neck flexors have a tendency to be elongated and weak.
While I can’t definitively state the reasons why, I have noticed that my neck position tends to default to being extended with the chin leveled rather than being flexed or neutral. This is true even in situations where having a neutral or even slightly flexed neck position would accomplish my same sight goal as well or better than via extension.
I also checked out and tried this isolation exercise:
(Yes, I discovered this video after I made my own mental connection that the neck muscles amount to the cervical spine equivalent of the core muscles. But yes, that someone else made the same comparison did amuse me. And yes, I might have chosen this particular clip at least in part for that reason.)
When I tried it, the first thing I noticed was my body’s natural inclination to continue moving up into a crunch. Whether this is due to muscle memory — crunches are simply a more familiar exercise for my body — or due to weaker neck flexors, I could not say for sure. The second thing I noticed was that once I maintained proper form, holding the position for ten seconds was actual work. That said, it wasn’t overly strenuous, and unlike the person in the video, I’ve never found myself shaking during it. (Though to be fair, I’ve never tried narrating a YouTube video while performing the exercise, so I imagine that’s skewing my results.)
End verdict? I do not think enough about how my neck works.
However, I am definitely starting to pay attention to what’s going on up there in more of my asanas.
