My husband and I watch TV in bed. The head of the bed is against the wall, and the TV faces the foot of the bed. To see the TV, I either sit up with my back against the wall, or lie down with extra pillows propped under my head. My husband, however, lies on his back and just… lifts his head up, with nothing supporting it. Kind of like the top picture here. He’ll lie like this for minutes on end. Sometimes, he’ll put his hands behind his head, but he can do it just as easily with his arms at his side or on his chest. It freaks me out whenever he does this, because it looks so uncomfortable to me. I mean, I can do it easily, but I can’t hold the position for too long before I get tired, and I can’t rest; I have to actively engage my muscles to hold my head up the whole time.
So, the other night, I saw an episode of “Bones”, and at the end Brennan and Booth were lying on the hood of a car talking. Brennan had her head against the windshield, but Booth had his head lifted. This led me to pull from my ass the hypothesis that this is one of those things that men can do and women can’t.
Is it? Can you rest comfortably in this position, and are you a man or a woman? And if you can, how long can you hold it? Several minutes? Indefinitely?
I’m female, and yes, I can do this comfortably for a few minutes (I just did it for 4) - as long as my shoulder blades are resting on the surface. If I try to lift up my shoulders as well it becomes a challenging upper ab exercise. My yoga instructor is fond of making us hold these types of positions for extended periods.
I certainly don’t ever remember doing this when I’m relaxing and watching tv, etc.
I think it’s just something that requires a specific kind of muscular strength, and of course men have a huge advantage on average there. They have more muscle mass that is stronger pound for pound than ours, even if they barely move.
This makes me wonder, then - do you feel like it takes any effort to do this, or are your muscles basically at rest?
For instance, I can hold my legs in this position for a long time with very little effort, but I have to engage my muscles. However, I can hold them in this position or this one with what feels like no effort at all. If my legs are leaning against each other or folded back on top of me, I can rest them. This is how my husband described it to me. He said he feels like his head is “resting” on his neck.
That’s entirely possible. I was thinking it might be related to the orientation and/or shape of men’s necks and shoulders vs. women’s, like how women tend to have wider hips and longer legs. Or it could be both.
Or it could be I’m completely wrong and it’s neither.
It feels slightly effortful, but sustainable. It doesn’t feel like ‘resting’, no.
Men also have proportionately MUCH thicker, more muscular, and therefore stronger necks in particular. It’s one of the most obvious effects of testosterone.
FWIW though my boyfriend can’t hold his head up like this as long as I can (I made him try last night) - it’s tiring and uncomfortable he says. And he has a really thick neck for his size, so thick that we have to buy all his dress shirts huge to fit it and tailor everything else down.
I think your husband just has ridiculous neck strength for some reason. Does he work out, or work in construction or something?
No – I’m a man and I can only fall asleep while doing large, dumb crosswords, like Sunday NYT, or reading cached SD threads. Always hurts my neck, and spine. Anecdata, an ex-girlfriendy simply couldn’t even play cribbage or Gin because “it hurts too much.” Now that I’m of a certain age, I think the better of urging her to play such games in bed.
I’m a woman and I don’t have any problem holding my head in that position for chunks of time. I could probably watch a half-hour sitcom in that position if I was so inclined, but it would not be “relaxing” to do it that long. I lay on the floor to see what muscles were engaged and it seemed to me that having a strong core helps.
Edit: I just re-read the bit about how the OP’s hubby said his head is “resting on his neck.” I added a pillow to create a slight incline and 'lo and behold! I was able to “let go” and disengage my neck muscles and let gravity do its job. It was totally doable, but I think I need the slight incline to make it work otherwise it does require some effort. I think the hood of a car like on the “Bones” episode someone mentioned upthread would be enough for me.
insert sexist joke about women being smarter than men
