Macfadden's 1911 Neck Section
The biggest name in physical culture publishing wrote a full chapter on developing the neck — and got the anatomy right, the physiology wrong, and the dosage missing entirely.
In 1911 Bernarr Macfadden devoted a full section of his Encyclopedia of Physical Culture to “The Neck. How It May be Developed,” followed by an illustrated series of at least eight numbered exercises covering resisted flexion, extension, lateral flexion and rotation. His anatomy was accurate. His physiology included two claims that were false and that can be traced spreading to later authors. And his entire dosage instruction was “Repeat until tired.”
Why he matters
Bernarr Macfadden was the largest figure in physical culture publishing — his magazine Physical Culture ran from 1899, and the Encyclopedia was the reference work of the movement.
He matters to this archive for three specific reasons.
He disproves the simplest version of the history. An earlier draft of this site argued that neck training entered the strength world through wrestling alone, on the evidence that Sandow (1897) and Calvert (1924) both omit the neck entirely. Macfadden refutes that directly: the biggest name in physique publishing covered it in full. The corrected three-branch argument is on the three branches.
He is the origin point of two false claims that can be traced propagating forward to later authors — which makes this one of the few places where the transmission of bad fitness science can be documented rather than assumed.
He shows the difference between covering a subject and programming it. His exercises are sound. His dosage is a single sentence.
What he wrote
The Neck. How It May be Developed. — Perhaps there is nothing more unsightly or unwholesome to behold than a scrawny, undeveloped neck. Of all undeveloped parts, this is the most painfully conspicuous, and furthermore offers to the beholder a sort of index of the vitality and general physical condition of the individual. A vigorous, well-set neck indicates not only a good muscular development of this part itself, but strength and energy in the entire body. It means a good, strong spine, well supported and reinforced, whereas a full throat indicates a large open thorax, with good breathing possibilities, and large arteries supplying blood to the brain, with plenty of room for them. All this, as one will perceive at a glance, means vigor and vitality.
Bernarr Macfadden, Macfadden’s Encyclopedia of Physical Culture, Volume 1, 1911. Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan macfaddensencyc00macfgoog, read as raw text rather than through any summarising layer. oflFers in the scan; read “offers.”
And on why it mattered to him:
…special exercises for the neck itself will help very greatly, not only in developing the muscles of this part, but in strengthening the upper spine. Such special exercises, naturally, become an urgent necessity in the case of special defects or weaknesses of the neck, and the exercises presented here will not fail, if persisted in, to round and fill out every part of the neck, giving such a degree of development and symmetry as anyone might well be proud of.
The exercises
EXERCISES FOR THE NECK.
No. 1. A simple neck exercise, bringing the head far forward and then backward. It may be intensified by tensing vigorously. Repeat until tired.
No. 2. Bring the head over to one shoulder without turning or twisting, as far as possible. Tensing all muscles, if desired.
No. 3. This is similar to the last exercise, but with resistance added. With each hand take hold of the other side of the head, reaching over the head, and then pull the head over to the farther shoulder against the resistance of the hand. Repeat on each side until tired.
No. 4. Turn the head first far to one side and then to the other, keeping it erect at all times, and tensing muscles if desired to make the exercise more vigorous. For sterno-mastoid muscles.
No. 6. Placing fingers on forehead, with head far back, bring head far forward until chin rests upon the chest, resisting the movement with the fingers.
No. 7–8. First placing the clasped hands back of the head, the latter bent far forward, bring head far back as in Illustration No. 8, against the resistance of the hands.
Macfadden, 1911, as above. exerdse and musdc& in the scan; read “exercise” and “muscles.”
Read those against a modern rehabilitation handout and the instructions are the same sentences. Resisted flexion, resisted extension, resisted lateral flexion, rotation. Nothing has been improved on in 115 years.
What he got right
The anatomy. He names the sternocleidomastoid as the target of rotation work — correct, and more specific than most modern popular content manages.
The exercise selection. All four directions, with resistance added where resistance is available. Exercise No. 2’s instruction — “without turning or twisting” — is exactly the coaching cue that pure lateral flexion still requires, because most people rotate slightly without noticing.
That neck work strengthens the upper spine, which is a reasonable statement of what cervical musculature does.
What he got wrong, and where it went
The cerebral blood supply claim
“…large arteries supplying blood to the brain, with plenty of room for them.”
Neck circumference does not govern cerebral perfusion. The claim was never testable in the form he stated it, and no evidence was offered.
Earle Liederman repeated it in 1924 — thirteen years later, in substance, in a book aimed at the same mail-order physical culture audience.
Nerve force
…the nervous system may be stimulated and energized by exercises which bring the blood to these parts and strengthen not only the muscles of these regions but also all of the adjacent tissues. The muscles of the back and of the neck, therefore, should always receive special attention…
Macfadden, 1911, as above. stdce in the scan; read “sake.”
George Jowett titled a chapter “How a Columnar Neck Creates Nerve Force” in 1926 — fifteen years later. That chapter is routinely quoted as period eccentricity. It is not eccentric. It is downstream of the biggest publisher in the field.
Two unfounded claims, originating with the largest fitness publisher of the era, picked up by subsequent authors a decade later, repeated as established fact, by men with a commercial interest in the conclusion. That is not a historical curiosity — it is a working description of how fitness claims still propagate. The full argument is on how the rationale changed.
What is missing: the dose
Macfadden’s complete dosage instruction across the whole section is “Repeat until tired.”
No load. No sets. No progression. No timeline.
Compare Hackenschmidt, writing three years earlier for wrestlers: begin at five repetitions and add one every third session to a ceiling of twenty; press a barbell of thirty to fifty pounds from the head bridge for three repetitions, adding one every second week to ten, then add five pounds and restart at three.
Both men prescribed nearly identical movements. Only one prescribed a programme.
That difference tracks the incentive exactly. Macfadden was selling the idea that exercise makes you vigorous, and precision was not the product. Hackenschmidt had to beat people.
It is also the reason this site treats unloaded, unmeasured resistance as an adjunct rather than a method — see manual resistance. Macfadden’s exercises are fine. What he never gave his readers was a way to get progressively stronger at them.
Provenance
Volume 1 of the Encyclopedia (1911) contains the training content. Volume 5 (1912) was checked separately: 1,387,265 characters, 74 instances of “neck,” and the only exercise references are cosmetic — reducing a double chin, and keeping the face “young and fresh looking.”
OCR quality in Volume 1 is good. Isolated errors are marked above. Full working notes are in the project archive.