Neck Training · 8 Min Read

I Had A $599 Neck Trainer In My Cart. I Bought The $199 One Instead.

The most famous neck trainer on the internet costs $599. Of that, $250 pays for one dial, and the box holds a single 25 pound band. Here is the math I did before paying, and why I closed the tab and bought a $199 one instead.

By Chris Bennett

Senior writer · Sep 23, 2026 · 8 min read

Nine Days In My Cart

I have lifted in my garage for years. There is a squat rack, a bench, and a plate tree full of iron I bought secondhand. My neck was the one thing I had never trained, and a photo from a friend's wedding made that obvious: shoulders from years of pressing, and a neck that looked borrowed from someone smaller.

So I did what everyone does. I searched for the best neck trainer, and every list, video and forum thread came back to the same name: Iron Neck. Into the cart went the 3.0 Pro, plus two heavier bands so I would have somewhere to go. Then I did not press the button for nine days.

Nine days is a long time to stare at a number, and long enough to read what it buys. The 3.0 Pro ships with one 25 pound band. Anything heavier is sold separately, which is why two more bands were in the cart. Iron Neck also sells the plain 3.0 for $349 with the same halo, so $250 of the $599 pays for a friction dial that resists your head as it turns. The $656 cart topped out at a 50 pound band, which works out to about $13 for every pound.

That changed the question from whether to pay $599 for the famous one to what a $199 one would have to do to beat it. I wrote down four things.

The Four Things It Had To Do

The Pro in my cart made a useful benchmark.

1.A load I would not outgrow in a year

The study I kept coming back to is a small one from the University of Georgia, published in 1997. Twenty two college students lifted three times a week for 12 weeks. One group added three sets of ten weighted head extensions, and MRI scans showed their neck muscle grew by about 13 percent. The group that only squatted, deadlifted and pressed grew essentially none there, even though their thighs grew 7 percent.

The number I cared about was the weight. That neck group started at about 39 pounds for sets of ten and finished near 53. Both numbers are past the one band in the Iron Neck box. Extension is the strongest direction and curls take less, but I wanted room to grow in all of them.

2.Increments I could count

Iron Neck's own band page says bands scale in difficulty the further they are stretched, so a 25 pound band is 25 pounds at one length and something else at another. A 2.5 pound plate weighs 2.5 pounds on every rep. For tracking progress week to week, I wanted the plate.

3.Front, back and both sides

Curls forward, extensions back and side bends are where neck training starts. Resisted rotation is a bonus for a lifter and close to essential for a fighter. I scored it as a bonus.

4.A fair price for the pounds I would use

I already owned plates, and paying again for resistance sitting in my garage made no sense. At about $13 a pound, the cart failed this one on its own.

The One That Passed All Four

It was a helmet, not a halo. Kensui's EZ-HELM V2 is a padded frame that straps on under your chin, with one short threaded sleeve at each ear. You slide 2 inch Olympic plates onto the sleeves, spin on a collar, and lift. It costs $199, which is the only version they sell, and it was in stock when I checked.

The verdict

Kensui EZ-HELM V2

★★★★☆ 4.75 from 135 reviews

$199

• Loads 2 inch Olympic plates up to 100 lb, or 1 inch plates with a $27 adapter
• Weighs 2 lb (700 g) empty, one size, packs into its own bag
• Passed all four tests, and costs $400 less than the Pro alone

Here is how it did on the four tests. Rated to 100 pounds, it clears the 53 the study group finished at with room to spare. My own plates go on it, down to 2.5 pounds a side. Forward, back and both sides all work with plates, and for rotation Kensui sells a $39 accessory, five resistance tubes made for it, which works but is not a friction dial. At $199 for 100 pounds, the price comes to about $2 a pound, with plates I already owned.

What $599 Actually Buys

That is the choice. What follows is the receipt behind it, the part I read during the nine days, in case the famous one is still sitting in your cart.

Start with the box. Iron Neck lists what ships with the 3.0 Pro: the halo, one 25 pound resistance band, three front pads, a door belt, a door anchor, a cinch anchor, a skull cap and a getting started guide. One band. Anything heavier is sold separately, $27 for the 35 pound band and $30 for the 50.

I was not the first person to notice. One verified buyer of the Pro left three stars on Iron Neck's own site and put it in a sentence.

"The 25 pound band it came with is not enough."

Andy M., three star review of the Iron Neck 3.0 Pro on iron-neck.com, February 2026

Then the dial. It is a real feature. Rotation is a big part of how necks get hurt in contact sports, and the Pro is one of very few tools that loads it. If I boxed or played rugby, I would weigh it seriously. For someone lifting in a garage, $250 was the price of the feature I would use least. Their site also runs a closeout section where the Pro sits at $399, sold as a clearance unit that may be used or blemished. Even there it costs double what I paid.

Before I closed the tab, I priced everything else people recommend. Each one is the best at something:

• Neck Flex MMB Pro, $119.95. Head straps with a chain for plates and a 19 pound band. Neck Flex says its design is the one named in three papers from a Royal Danish Air Force trial, which no one else here can claim.
• NecksLevel Glide Pro, $625. A wall mounted glider sold as a rehab tool first. If easing a sore neck is the whole reason you are shopping, start there.
• NECK X, $89.99. A cap with three bands that fits in a bag. The one to take to a hotel.
• The Strong Neck, $25. A pad that sits between your head and a plate you hold in place. The cheapest way to start with iron.
• Iron Neck 3.0, $349. The same halo without the dial.

Twelve Weeks Later

I started lighter than felt necessary: a 5 pound plate on each side for curls, and the empty helmet for side raises. Three sessions a week, the same as the study group, and each one took about ten minutes. By week twelve my extensions were at 45 pounds for sets of ten, right in the range the study group reached.

Plates made progress easy to see. I wrote the number down and added 2.5 pounds when ten clean reps felt easy. There was never a question of how hard a set had been.

Two things are worth knowing before you buy. There is no friction dial, so if rotation under load matters to you, the Iron Neck Pro does it better. The pads also attach with velcro, and one owner had both come loose before his first workout.

"The pads on the front and the back popped off before I worked out with it... But a little hockey tape fixed the problem, so no big deal."

Davyd E., four star review of the EZ-HELM V2

Another owner came to it the way I almost did, from the other side of the same decision.

"Bought this after having returned the iron neck 360 device and I prefer the kensui much more."

Timothy B., five star review of the EZ-HELM V2

The two carts, side by side

Before You Check Out

Do I need to own plates?

Yes. It takes 2 inch Olympic plates out of the box, and standard 1 inch plates need Kensui's $27 adapter. Kensui does not sell plates, so if you own none, a few small ones come first.

Is loading your neck safe?

Start lighter than feels sensible, move slowly, and add weight only when ten clean reps are easy. That is how the study group trained too. If you have a neck injury, ask your doctor before you start.

Will it fit my head?

It is one size with adjustable straps. The owner who returned his Iron Neck also wrote that the chin strap only just fit around his chin at its longest setting, so check yours in the first week.

The 100 days

These days the helmet lives in its bag under my couch. It comes out three times a week, and the plates come off the tree in the garage.

Kensui gives you 100 days to try it, which is longer than the 12 week study. Iron Neck's window is 60 days. Run the whole program, and if nothing changed, send it back. At $199, it is $400 less than the Pro alone and $457 less than the cart I almost checked out.

Sources. Conley MS, Stone MH, Nimmons M, Dudley GA. Specificity of resistance training responses in neck muscle size and strength. European Journal of Applied Physiology and Occupational Physiology, 1997, volume 75, pages 443 to 448. PMID 9189733. Iron Neck prices, box contents, band ratings and return window from iron-neck.com, and competitor prices from each brand's own store, all checked September 23, 2026.