ddhamilt, The ideal way to do the scalp exercise is this: You do a quick contraction of the frontalis muscle (a flash contraction), then you do a rather prolonged contraction of the occipitalis muscle (two or three seconds). The longer contraction strengthens this bisected muscle at the back of the head.
- "Impossible" muscle
- Occipitalis Muscle.gif (10.42 KiB) Viewed 21090 times
You don't have to consciously relax one muscle when you contract the other. The frontalis and occipitalis are "antagonistic" muscles: when one contracts, the other relaxes automatically.
But when you first experiment with this exercise you will feel some strange sensations as you contract your occipitalis. Most men who try to contract this muscle find it difficult at first to gain full control of it. After over two weeks of working with this muscle, I had pain in my trapezius, my neck, and even in my shoulders. But after I was able to "isolate" the occipitalis these pains vanished. When you gain full control over this difficult muscle your eccentric pains will vanish too.
Many men who send me videos of themselves doing the scalp exercise are contracting only the frontalis muscles at the front of the head. This is
not doing the scalp exercise right. You have to get that alternating contraction of
both epicranial muscles to get that half inch of scalp movement. I know it's tough at first but once you get that smooth alternating contraction you'll know it.
