Hackenschmidt's 1908 Neck Series
The complete neck programme from The Way to Live, transcribed from the original text — with a progressive-overload scheme seventeen years ahead of the first patent to claim one.
In 1908 the wrestler George Hackenschmidt published five neck exercises with fully specified dosage: self-resisted flexion and extension starting at five repetitions and progressing to twenty; head rolling for mobility; a barbell press from the head bridge using 30 to 50 lb, starting at three repetitions and building to ten before adding 5 lb and resetting; and a quadruped exercise with a weight hung from the back of the head by a broad belt, starting at 10 lb. It is a complete double-progression programme, and it predates the first patent to claim progressive neck resistance by seventeen years.
The text
Transcribed from the 1908 edition. Hyphenation artefacts introduced by the scanner’s
line-wrapping have been repaired; nothing else has been altered. Where the optical
character recognition produced a genuine error it is marked [sic] and the intended
reading given.
FIRST SERIES FOR THE NECK MUSCLES
Exercise 1. — Repeat Exercise No. 1 in last chapter, i.e., place clasped hands on the back of the neck and press head downwards on chest, resisting this pressure by the exercise of the neck muscles. Commence with five repetitions, and increase gradually, say once with every third performance, up to finally twenty repetitions.
Exercise 2. — Reverse the above exercise by pressing head back against hand resistance and perform as before.
Exercise 3. — Exercise No. 2, dealt with in last chapter. Stand erect and roll head in every direction by bending the neck as much as possible. Continue as directed in Exercise 1.
Exercise 4. — Press a bar-bell weighing from 30 lb. to 50 lb. with both hands into the head bridge, as shown in sketch.
Place a rather hard cushion under the head (a rolled-up coat or the like, if nothing else is available). The body should rest on the heels and crown of the head only.
At first this exercise may not be found easy of accomplishment, in which case the bridge should be perfected before the bar-bell press is attempted. The higher the bridge, the easier will the press be found.
Repeat three times to commence with and gradually increase, say once every second week, up to ten repetitions; then add 5 lb. to bell and commence again with three repetitions and so on.
A capital exercise for strengthening the muscles of the neck, nape and spine.
Exercise 5. — Get down on hands and knees and hang, by a broad belt, a weight on the back of the head (at first 10 lb. would be sufficient). With this move the head up, down and to both sides until tired, but not until exhausted.
George Hackenschmidt, The Way to Live, 1908, pp. 58–60. Transcribed from the Internet
Archive scan the-way-to-live, characters 75,404–77,125 of the plain-text edition, read
directly rather than through any summarising layer. Public domain.
The programme, in modern terms
| # | Exercise | Modality | Prescribed dose |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Clasped hands behind head, press head toward chest against own resistance | Self-resisted isometric flexion | 5 reps → 20, adding one rep every third session |
| 2 | Reverse: press head backward against hand resistance | Self-resisted isometric extension | as above |
| 3 | Stand erect, roll head through full range in every direction | Unloaded mobility | as above |
| 4 | Barbell press while holding a head bridge | Loaded bridging | 30–50 lb; 3 reps → 10, adding one rep every second week; then +5 lb, reset to 3 |
| 5 | Quadruped, weight suspended from the back of the head by a broad belt | Harness-loaded dynamic, all directions | from 10 lb, “until tired, but not until exhausted” |
Four things worth noticing
It is a double progression, fully specified. Reps advance on a defined schedule to a defined ceiling; then load increases by a defined increment and reps reset to the floor. That is the progression model most strength coaches would recommend today, written out in 1908 for the neck specifically. The first US patent to claim progressive neck resistance as a feature — Henry Titus’s headgear, which allowed strands of elastic to be added “as the muscles of the neck increase in strength” — was not granted until 1925.
He gates the loaded work behind a skill prerequisite. “The bridge should be perfected before the bar-bell press is attempted.” A named competency that must exist before load is added. The modern formulation is own the position before you load it, and it is often presented as a recent insight in coaching.
He understood the leverage. “The higher the bridge, the easier will the press be found.” This is mechanically correct: raising the hips shortens the moment arm between the cervical spine and the bar, reducing the extension moment the neck must resist. He states it as a practical observation with no vocabulary for why.
Exercise 5 contains an autoregulation cue. “Until tired, but not until exhausted.” Stopping short of failure, prescribed by feel rather than by count — the same instruction a modern protocol expresses as a rating of perceived exertion. The rugby protocol described in the programming guide autoregulates load against a ten-point scale; Hackenschmidt autoregulated volume against a sensation.
What this does not say
He gives no anatomical rationale. There is no discussion of which muscles are being trained, no mention of the sternocleidomastoid or the deep cervical flexors, and no theory of why a stronger neck would benefit a wrestler beyond the self-evident. The instruction is purely operational: do this, this many times, add this much.
He also records no measurements. There is no neck circumference given for himself or for anyone else in this text, which is worth stating plainly because figures for old-time strongmen’s necks circulate widely online and are rarely sourced to anything.
Safety note
Exercise 4 is a loaded neck bridge and Exercise 5 loads the neck through range in every direction. Both place substantial load on the cervical spine, and both appear here as historical record rather than as recommendation. Read the safety page before attempting either, and note that Hackenschmidt was writing for competitive wrestlers who had already spent years bridging. His own text makes the prerequisite explicit.