Project Neck- The Female Study

Project Neck- The Female Study
According to a study published in the Journal of Athletic Training in 2007, female high school athletes suffered almost 40 percent more concussions than males did. It estimated that female players suffer about 29,000 concussions annually with boys suffering 21,000.

A new study to be published in the Journal of Athletic Training found that in high school soccer, girls sustained this type of head trauma 68 percent more often than boys. Female concussion rates in high school basketball were almost three times higher then boys and the girls took longer to return to play.

When there is an Epidemic in The United States we don’t just inoculate one section of the population we give the antidote to all that need it. In light of research and just common sense our female athletes need to be protected.

Because of physiological differences, women do not have to worry about getting ‘huge’ necks, but they can become very strong. The physics of kinetic energy dissipation applies to females as well as men. The female athlete can protect herself by strengthening the musculature around the cervical spine.







Their  training is not dissimilar then the men who train theirs. They train  the flexor, extensors and trapezius muscles that allow for increased neck stiffness and high performance moves on the playing field.




Project Neck- The female Study examines the changes both anatomically and morphologically, when resistance training is introduced.








The female subjects will follow the same protocol of their male counterparts used in Project Neck earlier this year.










Females Can Get Strong

Train The Head And Neck To Lower Concussive Forces

Train The Head And Neck To Lower Concussive Forces
Time Magazine talks about concussions. Get a copy. Train the head and neck. Lower concussive forces. Get strong.

The Pendulum 5 Way Neck

The Pendulum 5 Way Trains The Head And Neck

Tags: Pendulum neck

Every Weight Room Needs a Great Row

Row Row Row Your Back Muscles
Every weight room needs a great row machine. Tyler Hobson explains, the function of the upper back is complex, so I decided to make a row machine that could be done with 3 preferred grips, underhand, overhand and neutral.

The primary function of the upper back musculature is to pull the arms from an extended position either down or in. By keeping the 3 handles on the machine in fixed positions, I felt the strength coach could easily dictate which measurable protocol he felt would be key to the athletes development.

Mississippi State University Weight Room

When you use the underhand grip you bring in the biceps to assist the row and also augment the lower trapezius and latissimus. The overhand grip not only targets the upper back, but fires up the rear delts. The neutral grip is a tremendously powerful position, which you need to be in to affect this large group of back muscles.

Northwood University Weight Room

I set the seat height so that in the fully contracted position the hands land just below the pecs. Normally, in a row you sit with your feet forward, which allows you to push with your legs as your arms extend, but there is an ideal place for your feet and that is behind you as you lean forward. With your chest firmly on the pad you have limited leverage and you  stimulate the lats directly with less weight.

West Virginia University Weight Room

On the front of the machine I placed S.E.T. (set extension technology), S.E.T. allows you to change the range of motion for varying limb lengths, and  perform extremely intense 'drop sets' by running the rails.

If you are ever in Conroe,Texas or want to stop by the Pendulum factory in Clare, Michigan...........S.E.T. on one of our machines to Get Strong.

Tags: Pendulum

50 rep set

Every Friday in the off-season we trained the 50 rep leg press.

Mike Gittleson was the Director of Strength & Conditioning at the University of Michigan for 30 years and was a part of 15 Football Championships in that time.

Early in my career I watched Dr. Ken Leistner train Kevin Tolbert, now the Head Strength Coach at Stanford University, on a leg press for fifty straight repetitions. The weight was enormous and the exercise was absolutely brutal. After about the 25th rep I figured Kevin would never get another rep and he did. This went on until he reached 50. I was more than impressed.

I respect Dr. Ken and figured if this young man, Kevin, had legs that strong by doing 50 rep sets and Dr Ken advised it then I'd better check it out.

I returned to school and instituted the 50 rep set. Every Friday in the off-season we trained the 50 rep leg press.

Photo Courtesy of Kathy Leistner

What amazed me after 5 weeks of training was how incredible the strength of the athletes legs became.

Photo Courtesy of Gabe Harrington of Colgate University

Initially I thought their gains were going to be slow. There is a correlation between endurance and strength, but training high reps normally is not the most efficient way to build strength. I was surprised the players leg strength exploded.

This is what I like about the 50 Rep Leg Press:

1. It is brutal.

2. The athletes don't like it even though they make tremendous gains.

3. You learn a lot about the anatomy of your legs and how muscles like the adductors on about the 45th rep begin to scream as the femoral head of the femur tries to disengage from the acetabulum of the hip joint. This is not going to happen, but it sure feels like it.

4. You learn a lot about each athlete and effort.

Burnie Legette was an engineering student as well as fullback on the football team and played professionally for the New England Patriots. When he leg pressed 50 reps the weight room would kind of stop and the focus would be on Burnie. Burnie's leg press weight was not only heavy, but every rep was so perfect that I wanted to to write home to his mother about each movement he performed.

The exercise and effort was so extraordinary you couldn't help but watch not once, but everytime he lifted. 'Burnie is leg pressing", we would whisper. The irony was that being competitve and tough the players wanted to emulate his effort and as a coach I wanted each player to perform 50 reps the same way. I think everyone who saw Burnie lift tried to train the same way as it was their nature..... but there are reasons though there is only one King.

Sometimes I must admit training 50 reps straight may put you in Wonderland. You must be prepared for the adventure and be smart when training in the aforementioned manner...... this is what the King said as quoted from Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland"....very sage advice I might add.

“"Begin at the beginning," the King said, very gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop”

Little Movements Make Big Changes

FROM THE COACH'S DAUGHTER

My Dad was a Strength Coach for 30 years. We literally live in a gym with furniture. I remember when my brother asked to play contact sports, my father agreed, but said, “You
will have to train that neck.” Shortly afterwards a neck machine
appeared about 8 feet from our living room couch.

“Little Movements Make Great Changes"".....he said

My Dad said this to me when I was running track,”Little movements cause great changes, make the little stuff count.”

When I first started hurdling, I had a lazy trail leg. I didn't have to bring it very far to make my step over the hurdle quicker, and lower my
time. Of course, this took years to perfect, but the results were clear:
small movements make great changes.

When my brother began neck training on our neck machine, my father also showed him an exercise for scapula retraction. He said, “KC, you need to include Kelso and Hise shrugs in
your neck routine.”

He marched KC down the steps to the downstairs lat machine, I followed. Dad showed KC this little shrug movement that made me laugh; it seemed so
silly.

He had my brother keep his arms straight and and try to pinch his scapula together, “Retraction” he called it. “Keep your arms straight. Now squeeze. Again squeeze. I began to giggle
and crack jokes.” Dad got mad and went to his library, in what we call
the. ‘gun room.’ You know the exercise-for-your-arms room. He threw KC
this book, "Kelso's Shrugs". “Read it,” he said.

Materials exhibiting characteristics that are both solid and fluid-like, are simply categorized as viscoelastic materials. Most of the biological tissues, such as your
muscle tendon unit, and ligaments, are viscoelastic materials. The human
head-neck system is a fluid-filled spherical cavity supported by a
viscoelastic neck.

Viscoelastic materials possess time dependent, or rate sensitive stress-strain relations. In other words, the stress-strain relationship will change as
the loading speed, or strain rate, changes. The goal in a collision is
to deflect and dissipate force, and effect the strain rate. Building up
the size of the cylinder, that is, the upper neck muscles, is only part
of the goal.

Strengthening the muscles that run down the cervical and thoracic spine, the rhomboids major and minor, middle and lower traps, are all tremendously important. Therefore, scapula
retraction is a must-exercise for the dissipation of a deflected force.
Remember, it's not easy being in head-on collisions.

Now that I am older, and have been in athletics, I don’t giggle when KC is doing his tiny lifts.

“Little Movements Make Great Changes”.....he said

G Force deflection and dissipation exercises for the cervical spine:

(1)Front of the neck

(2)Right side of the neck

(3)Left Side of the neck

(4)Back of the neck

(5)Shrugs

(6)Scapula retraction

(7)Hise shrugs. (KC does these on our Pendulum Squat Pro; it is in the garage. Dad asked if he could put it in my bedroom...seriously!)

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