Joe Rogan & Andy Stumpf on Iron Neck: Why He's Been Using It for Years

On a recent episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, #2482 with retired Navy SEAL and author Andy Stumpf, the conversation turned, as it often does when Rogan gets deep into training, to the neck.

They were discussing neck cranks in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. The kind of injury that ends training blocks, sidelines athletes for months, and in some cases changes the trajectory of a career. Rogan, who has trained BJJ for over 30 years, knows this territory well. He has been on the receiving end of it.

"I also didn't work my neck enough back then," Rogan said. "I didn't have an Iron Neck back then."

A few minutes later, after describing exactly how he uses the device, the halo design, the chin strap, the 50-pound bungee cord, the rotational resistance, he landed on the summary that every person who trains has been waiting to hear from someone who has actually done the work:

"I swear by that thing. It keeps your neck strong as f. And I don't have any neck problems anymore. And I had a lot of fing neck problems. But again, I didn't have a f***ing Iron Neck back then. If I had that machine back then, I think I could have avoided a lot of the problems."

This was not the first time Rogan has said something like this. Not even close.

A Pattern, Not a Moment

What makes Rogan's relationship with Iron Neck worth paying attention to is not any single quote. It is the consistency of it across years and dozens of conversations with very different guests.

On JRE #2239, he told his guest: "I use an Iron Neck, which I really believe in. It's the only thing that I've ever done that strengthened my neck and not caused me any neck problems."

On JRE #2052, discussing full-body stability and training longevity: "I strengthen all the muscles in my back and neck and use the Iron Neck to hit everything. It helps keep that whole area stable and strong, reinforce it."

On JRE #1492, in a conversation with Jocko Willink about BJJ and injury prevention: "It's such a big advantage in avoiding getting hurt because Iron Neck strengthens the whole chain from the top of your spine all the way down."

On JRE #2255, talking about neck strength as a functional weapon in grappling: "A strong neck is great for jiu-jitsu because it's a weapon, like in certain positions, like head and arm chokes. You need a neck for overall stability."

The through-line across all of these conversations is the same: Rogan came to Iron Neck because he had real neck problems, he used it consistently, and the problems went away. He keeps talking about it because it keeps working.

Why the Neck Gets Ignored and Why That's a Problem

Rogan made a point on JRE #2482 that goes beyond Iron Neck itself. Talking about the BJJ community, he said: "So many guys just go into the class. They just, that's their workout. Their only workout is training. And those guys are always hurt. They're always getting hurt. I think strength training and mobility training is essential if you want to have longevity in jiu-jitsu."

This is a problem that extends well beyond the mat. The neck is one of the most structurally loaded parts of the body. It supports the weight of the head, absorbs impact, and connects the brain to the rest of the nervous system. Yet it is almost universally absent from strength training programs. Most people train their chest, back, shoulders, and legs with structured progressive overload. Almost no one applies that same logic to the neck.

The result is predictable. Neck injuries are among the most common training setbacks in BJJ, wrestling, football, and contact sports broadly. Cervical disc issues, nerve impingement, and chronic stiffness are not just problems for elite athletes. They are the everyday reality for anyone who sits at a desk for eight hours, looks down at a phone, or trains hard without addressing the one part of the body that ties everything together.

What Iron Neck Actually Does

The reason Rogan keeps coming back to Iron Neck specifically, rather than generic neck exercises or resistance band work, comes down to how the device trains the neck.

Iron Neck works through 360-degree rotational resistance. The device sits on the chest like a halo, secured with a chin strap, and uses a bungee cord system to create resistance as you rotate your head through its full range of motion. This trains the deep stabilizer muscles of the cervical spine, the muscles that protect against impact, resist cranking forces in grappling, and maintain posture under load, in a way that static exercises simply cannot replicate.

As Rogan described it on JRE #2482: "You sit it on your chest and you pump it up like the Reebok pump. And then the chin strap, you tighten that down and you can adjust the tension that's required to spin it and it has this giant bungee cord on it. And so the bungee cord is like 50 pounds of resistance. So you back up with the bungee cord until it's like fully taut. And then you go like this."

The adjustable tension means the device scales from rehabilitation work, where someone recovering from a cervical injury needs low resistance and controlled movement, all the way to high-load athletic training for fighters and strength athletes. This is why Iron Neck is used across such a wide range of contexts: physical therapy clinics, NFL training facilities, BJJ gyms, and home training setups alike.

For the BJJ Athlete: Protection Where You Need It Most

In Brazilian jiu-jitsu, the neck is under constant threat. Chokes, cranks, guard passing pressure, and the cumulative load of drilling and rolling all place stress on the cervical spine. A strong neck does not just reduce injury risk. It changes what is possible on the mat.

A neck that can resist rotational force holds up better under choke attempts. A neck with full range of motion and strength through extension allows you to create frames and posture up from guard more effectively. And perhaps most importantly, a neck that is not chronically stiff or painful allows you to train more consistently, with better focus, for longer.

Rogan's comment about longevity is the key point: "I think strength training and mobility training is essential if you want to have longevity in jiu-jitsu." The athletes who are still rolling in their 40s and 50s are not the ones who trained hardest in their 20s. They are the ones who trained smart, who treated their bodies as systems that require maintenance, not just output.

For Everyone Else: The Neck Is Not Just a Combat Sports Problem

The audience for neck training extends far beyond the mat. Chronic neck pain is one of the most common musculoskeletal complaints in the general population. A significant portion of it is driven by the same root cause: a neck that has been loaded passively through poor posture, forward head position, and hours of static loading, without ever being trained to handle that load through active strength.

Iron Neck addresses this directly. The rotational and extension-based training it provides builds the kind of functional strength that supports posture, reduces tension headaches, and restores the range of motion that most adults have gradually lost. The 96% of Iron Neck users who report less tension are not all BJJ athletes. Many of them are office workers, parents, and recreational fitness enthusiasts who simply decided to treat their neck the same way they treat every other part of their body.

The Bigger Picture

Joe Rogan is not a spokesperson for Iron Neck. He has never been paid to talk about it. He talks about it because he used it, it worked, and he keeps using it. As someone who has spent decades in the training world, he recognizes the difference between a gimmick and a tool that actually changes outcomes.

When someone with Rogan's training history and platform says "I swear by that thing" and "it's the only thing that I've ever done that strengthened my neck and not caused me any neck problems," that is worth taking seriously.

The neck is not optional. It is the foundation of everything: posture, performance, protection. The only question is whether you train it intentionally or wait until something goes wrong.

Iron Neck is used by professional athletes, physical therapists, and everyday fitness enthusiasts to build neck strength through 360-degree rotational resistance training. It is the only neck training device Joe Rogan has consistently referenced across multiple years and dozens of podcast episodes.