The Neck Extension is a beginner-friendly bodyweight strength exercise that targets the traps. Here's how to do it right — and what to stop doing.
Primary musclesTraps
Secondary muscles—
EquipmentBodyweight
LevelBeginner
TypeStrength
3D demo in the EGON app
01 Execution
How to do the Neck Extension
Lie face down on a flat bench with your hips centered and your chest past the front edge.
Place your hands flat on the bench under your shoulders to support your upper body.
Let your head and neck hang past the edge with your face toward the floor.
Lift your head back until your neck lines up with your upper back.
Hold the top for a beat with your jaw and shoulders relaxed.
Lower your head slowly to the start and repeat for the prescribed reps.
02 The payoff
Why it earns its spot
Loads the neck extensors directly, a group most training plans never address.
Needs only a bench, so it fits home, gym and clinic settings alike.
The short bodyweight range makes the effort easy to scale by tempo and reps.
03 Don't do this
Common mistakes
Throwing the head back into full hyperextension, which jams the neck joints instead of loading the extensors.
Adding load before the neck can hold a clean range, which turns the set into a jerky swing.
Shrugging the shoulders to help, which hides how much work the neck is actually doing.
Letting the chest lift off the bench, so the movement becomes a back extension instead of a neck extension.
EGON Put it on record
Track it in EGON.
Log every set of the Neck Extension, get your PRs detected automatically, earn aura for the work — and climb five leagues of statues, from Stone to Ego.
