Steps
- With your head and neck in a neutral position (normal position with head erect facing forward), place both of your hands on the front side of your head.
- Now gently push forward as you contract the neck muscles but resisting any movement of your head. Start with slow tension and increase slowly. Keep breathing normally as you execute this contraction.
- Hold for the recommended number of seconds.
- Now release the tension slowly.
- Rest for the recommended amount of time and repeat with your hands placed on the back side of your head.
Tracking it in OneRep
Add the isometric neck exercise - front and back to a routine and your previous weight and reps sit beside every set, so the decision to add load is made by what is already on the screen rather than by memory. Exercise history and volume trends are one tap away, and logging works offline for the gyms where signal does not reach.
Because OneRep tracks food on the same timeline, a stall on this lift can be read against what you were actually eating that month — which is the difference between a programming problem and an eating one. More on that in tracking progressive overload without a spreadsheet.
Where the instructions come from
The steps above come from free-exercise-db, a public-domain exercise dataset. They are general guidance, not coaching for your body: if a movement hurts, stop and get someone qualified to look at it.