If you're buying into the nose-bridging-for-fitness-craze
popularized recently by so-called "no-BS fitness" pundits -
you're dangerously sticking your neck out while padding
their wallet. Wrestler's nose-bridging is a grappling
technique, not an fitness exercise - (anyone teaching it
otherwise is negligent). As the former USA National Sambo
Coach - the 3rd style of international wrestling, we
deliberately sought to minimize the amount of time bridging
due to the strain created in our young athletes when only
competing. Can you imagine the cumulative effects of this on
older folks?
Compression
of the cervical vertebra directly promotes to cumulative
joint degeneration. Your joints are lined
with cartilage for protection of the joint and to absorb
shock from the external world. As we age, this waxy
substance in our joints degrades, as does pain-free full
range of motion. After puberty, except for the mandible,
your joints no longer receive nutritive blood supply. The
only oxygen and nutrition that your joints receive comes
from a fluid secretion called Synovial Fluid. Furthermore,
over time, your joints accumulate various toxins and excess
materials promoting degenerative disease and infection.
Add to
aging, the compressive exercise suggestions like
Nose-Bridging and by the above description, you accelerate
joint deterioration! Mobility alone stimulates the release
of the nutritive flow, oxygen delivery and contamination
cleansing wash of Synovial fluid. Imagine your daily
activities of neck tension compress out this Synovial fluid,
as well as the age-related deterioration. Now add to it a
heavily contorted exercise to squeeze out the remainder of
this precious joint nectar. Think about this and remember
some people are asking you to PAY them to teach you to do
this to your neck. So why spend hours in a bridge straining
to touch your beak to the mat?
Perhaps you
are one of the few who have the vertebral structure which
can sustain such angular sheer and compressive force over
the years. Perhaps you are young enough that you won't see
any adverse affects from this activity for awhile. However,
most people will accumulate chronic conditions from such
activity, and there are without doubt more efficient, safer,
and greater results producing methods of accomplishing the
goal than this family of "neck-bridging" exercises.
So What's The Alternative?
The last
neck exercise you'll ever need is the Body-Flow Neck Roll.
This exercise is part of the Body-Flow curriculum.
Begin Prone Crucifix style. |
|
Turn your head to one side. Begin a
horizontal version of "Screwing Arms" exercise,
rolling the shoulder down which lay opposite of the
direction you turned your head. This lifts your
opposite shoulder. Tilt your head under the lifted
armpit as if moving chin to chest. Continuing
rotating the opposite arm, beginning with the
shoulder, attempting to move from palm down to palm
down 360 degrees later. |
|
Tilt your pelvis upward and exhale hard
with Performance Breathing. As per Performance
Breathing, your core should be tight and compressed
now - neither vacuum nor Valsalva.
Contract your core musculature to drag your legs.
Simultaneously continue Screwing Arms.
Allow your hips to move in a crescent so that your
feet drag directly towards your head. |
|
Go ultra-slow so that you prevent
roll-over and can transition to the Neck Roll.
Keep moving chin to chest and when your head frees
begin to turn your head back to center. You pass
through the Spinal Rock position (AKA the "plough"
in Yoga). |
|
As your feet extend back into the Prone
Crucifix, you complete the exercise. |
|
There's old
Soviet footage of a teenage Sambo wrestler performing
advanced neck-bridging exercises in the introduction of an
old video of mine. Then alternative exercise suggestions are
made using Biomechanical Exercise from my system - a ROSS
vs. SAMBO training demonstration in the introduction. I've
experimented with just about every method out there as an
international athlete and national coach. I needed to find
the best methods promising the greatest results for the
longest athletic careers. CST is the culmination of those 15
years, and for your neck, the last exercise you'll ever need
is the Body-Flow Neck Roll.
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