what muscles are in the back of the neck?

Question

what are the names of them or is it just tendons and mainly back muscles that help the head be stable HELP me project due tomorrow remeber *back* of neck

Answer 1

The main muscle that runs up the back of neck - an enormous muscle which also covers the shoulders - is the trapezius. If you touch or press into and massage either half of the back of your neck, you should feel the muscle, which I believe runs up to the base of the skull. Trace the muscle right down and over the fleshy part of the shoulder (that's the muscle that is commonly massaged when someone walks up behind you, for example, and grabs you by the shoulders, or when we see friendly massage on a television show or movie), and the muscle spreads in wings over the upper back.

Part of the reason neck and shoulder tightness occur together is because of this oft-ignored muscular connection. Your neck is your shoulder is your upper back. If you have a tendency to tense your neck and jaw when nervous, it's going to spread to and affect the shoulders. If you tense the shoulders, it's going to spread to the neck and back, and so on.

Here's a list of some deeper neck muscles from _Anatomy of Movement_ by Blandine Calais-Germain (the trapezius is superficial):
- transversospinalis (rectus capitis poster minor and major; obliquus capitis superior and inferior) - all of these muscles are very tiny and allow great precision of movement in the neck and "regulate the correct orientation of the head on the neck"
- longissimus capitis
- iliocostalis cervicis (a long muscle that runs down the back and attaches at the neck)