Training Neck, Deltoids, and Lats by JessiBowen on DeviantArt (original) (raw)

Continued from:

Here I'm demonstrating a side lateral raise with dumbbells. Today, this segment focus on some other upper body components that don't include the arms.

Although wrestling engages the whole body, wrestling is primarily a pulling sport when it comes to the upper body. When you're pulling in single legs, tangling up for double underhooks, slamming, and snapping your opponent down, all these actions engage much more that the bicep and tricep muscle groups; your upper body strength also requires well-developed lats, deltoids, and the whole trapezius section. In boxing, along with the middle and upper traps, the lats are the more frequently utilized muscle group since these play a synergistic role in arm flexion and internal rotation which generate the momentum behind those punches.

However, if you complete a million lat cable-pulls down and dumbbell lat raises with no thought to training your core (of which the lats are an essential part of that unit), then your other muscles will need to be forcibly recruited to pick up the slack. If you continue to work and train with an unbalanced body, over time this will cause your joints and limbs to be overstressed, seize up, and get inflamed. This tension doesn't stay localized as the body is interlinked, so this tension in the core can move further up toward the neck and shoulder.

If that happens, what boxer can protect their head and neck repeatedly over time, and have their head bounced back in full force ready to seize the round? For a wrestler, a strong neck is crucial to surviving slams to the mat without getting injured repeatedly. A solid neck allows us to use bridges to buck opponent off or flip our bodies to transition to a more advantageous position. My varied neck strengthening regime consists of dumbbells shrugs, stability ball neck bridges, weighted sand bag neck bridges, good mornings with a spring bar, and you use can even use a thigh master machine at home and see how long you can bend your neck and and time yourself on how long you can maintain the pressure.

And now, to my favorite muscle that I adore to train aside from quads, bis/tris. These are the deltoid muscles on the top of the shoulders - the beautiful rounded cap that sets off the shoulders and arms. When they are very pronounced, they have the "shoulder boulder" look. I love to train these, not only for aesthetics but for function. The anterior deltoid is used along with the pecs to create a powerful and solid punch. When boxers maintain the guard position or parry hits, the strong deltoids are instrumental in keeping a strong stance. For wrestlers in a high impact sport, the deltoids absorb some of the shock from all the pushing and pulling motions. These along with a set of strong shoulders are recruited in those takedowns, defense, and pins. Tons of exercises are available to switch up your delt training - burpees, the good ole-fashioned pushups, Z press, reverse flye machines, and cable face pulls, to name just a few!!!

Whew, that talk wore me out! Time to grab my gallon of water for a break and get back to wurk! *Whip snapping noise*

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Artist: Thank you so much for creating these images, so I could geek on training!

Other Training Teasing Promos:

Another Look At Arm Day Or Training In General!

Jessi's Training - Forearms, Biceps, Triceps

Jessi's Training - Badass Resistance Day