August 2020
Traps aka your trapezius, aka your shoulders -- not to be confused with your deltoids at the top of the upper arm -- are an important muscle group. The below image from bodyweightexexercise.blogspot.com shows how the trapezius resembles almost a diamond shape, at least from behind, probably because they run up the back of your neck, down your spine and towards the deltoids. Buttocks however don't. They resemble a peach below the hips. Just saying is all.
Yes. Yes that just happened.
...moving on.
Whilst the trap muscles sheath your upper back and like all good muscle-groups work in unison together, upper traps are considered more responsible for raising and lowering the shoulders (like when we shrug, hence the exercise named after shrugging the shoulders); "middle traps" are considered to be more for drawing our shoulders backwards as in behind the body; and the lower traps for helping pull our shoulder-blades downwards and in a sense, inwards too.
No, it's not that delineated in real-life.
If you look at most lifters -- and nearly all Olympic lifters -- they have very well developed traps and by that I mean they have big upper traps due to their near constant use in pulling-slash-shrugging up heavy-ass weights. Think clean-and-jerk, overhead pressing, that sort of carry on. Yes, you can build big traps doing these same exercises but know that all rowing-type exercises are excellent for building a big, strong back and do a superb job at targeting the trapezius muscle as well.
But to really develop big upper traps?
Enter the shrug...
SHRUG DON'T HUG
A lot of lifters and netspurts will tell you that doing big, compound lifts like deadlifts and rows will blow your (upper) traps up. Right up, kemosabe in fact maybe, maybe all the way up. That's a lot of up. They use terrific language like "slabs of muscle". Have you read that before? It sounds so cool: you'll put on slabs of muscle. But. Not everyone will benefit from said spill-over and will therefore need to specifically target the upper traps for further development.
That means using a specific, trap-focused movement like the shrug.
Here's where we thank our bodybuilding kin for their wealth of knowledge at developing human musculature. As someone who is not a bodybuilder I thank them and their obsession with increasing muscle-size such that we know to shrug in the first place. Shrugs, named after the movement of "shrugging" the shoulders -- albeit with weight in hand -- are an excellent exercise to specifically target the upper traps and yes, there are various ways and means to shrug.
But.
The movement is always the same.
...you "shrug" your shoulders upwards.
In today's gyms there are shrug machines, I hear. I don't personally know because I haven't set foot inside a gym for, oh, some 20+ years. But I've heard rumours, folks: nasty, no good rumours. The only shrugs I know about are free weight shrugs. Now, some people like to build up to a heavy shrug set. Some people like to do 3-5 sets at 10+ reps. Some people like to do heavy-ass shrugs using straps but I'll just talk about what I do and wax lyrical on the rest afterward.
Okay? Chur.
HOW I SHRUG
First off, I use a barbell and I only mention this because some people prefer dumbbells whilst others hold plates. I hold this in front of me.
I've also found in order to feel and/or gain any benefit from shrugging, I need a weight roundabout bodyweight. That might be the same for you, it might not.
The focus for me is smooth and constant movement, really focusing on stretch and tension: feeling the resistance of the weight itself as I raise-slash-shrug my shoulders upward followed by the downward "pull" of the bar as I lower the weight getting a stretch across the shoulders.
Some people advocate squeezing at the top of your shrug and/or holding for a count but I don't personally. Try it and see what works for you. I do shrugs after I've warmed up but pretty much go straight into this weight-range doing 3 x sets AMRAP (As Many Reps As Possible).
If I feel really inspired, as I'm hauling off the plates I'll take a 20kg plate in both hand and bang out 1-2 sets using just those, again going AMRAP as an after-burner. Does this actually do anything? No idea, but it fries the shit out of my traps and I'm sore a few days after that's for sure.
What I've picked up over the years is that because the traps pull our shoulders backwards as well, I incorporate that angle of stretch into my shrugs. To incorporate this back-and-upward shrug style, I stand with feet shoulder-width apart, knees unlocked, and lean slightly forward -- say round 15° -- with the barbell practically resting on the bottom of my thigh above the knees, as shown top left.
In the process of shrugging I literally end up dragging the bar up my thigh as I shrug upward then slowing the bar's descent back down my thigh as I lower the bar toward the knees. I'm still shrugging directly up but because my torso is angled I'm also shrugging backwards and in fact, imagine I'm not so much touching shoulders-to-ears inasmuch as pulling shoulders-past-head at least, that's the mental cue I use.
SOME REFLECTIONS ON SHRUGS
Now if you've heard of the popular fitness model Simeon Panda and have watched some of his exercise clips, the guy hauls huge weight for shrugs using a very rapid up and down motion: stands straight with no lean at all and just goes for gold. He also has a set of traps a snowboarder would love to do flips off. A lot of today's popular male fitness stars do the same: fast shrugs using heavy weights.
I mention this simply to demonstrate that there's more than one way to shrug; do what works for you and even more importantly, what you enjoy. My way but not be the snizzle for you in which case, Mr Panda's way may and if his is not, keep looking/researching until you find a way that works. What needs to be noted though is if you're in the mid-Century age bracket like moi, your results will most likely take a lot longer.
Like 3-6 months longer.
...maybe even twice that.
Note too, shrugs may not work at all for you. Though I'd be surprised.
THINGS NOT TO DO
Now there are a few things not to do when shrugging, some which you'll find on the likes of youtube and are highly entertaining to say the least. So in no particular order they are:
• Don't use too much weight such that you're only bobbing your head, blow-jobbing the invisible man
• Don't use too little weight either, which is equally ineffectual
• If you want to go uber heavy then use straps. No point blowing your grip out
• Try to keep your eyes straight ahead, rather than craning your head up or down
• Shrug straight upwards and downwards; there's no need to roll your shoulders forwards/backwards
• Do NOT get a boner when shrugging; bar vs penis is a real thing. Bar wins every time
• If you're a gym-bunny, don't stare at people when you shrug. That shit is weird
OTHER WAYS TO SHRUG/HIT TRAPS
You can shrug with the bar behind your back if you wish; I used to do this a bit but it has since fallen out of favour with me. I've heard this hits mid-traps more but I wouldn't bet a baby's life on it. If you have access to dumbbells you can shrug holding these at your sides which is actually a very comfortable -- and more natural -- position to shrug in, which explains why some guys prefer to hold a heavy plate in each hand.
I expect commercial gym shrug-machines are adapted this way too.
Talking of gyms, doing face-pulls via a cable-machine has become increasingly popular for shoulder/trap development so if you go to the gym, you may wish to try that (note that popular doesn't automatically equate to most-effective). It actually makes sense to me because it's incorporating the retraction of the shoulder-blade but then, so do heavy 1-arm rows. Your call, kemosabe. Your call.
Another fav is the upright row but I found these played havoc with my shoulders/rotator-cuffs. Doing these with a close-grip and a curl-bar would be mint though: that bar-type would allow your wrists to be in a more user-friendly position. What I did find is that having a grip wider than shoulder-width or more made the movement both safer and comfortable for me using a straight bar.
...but then, I am a lanky biatch.
Lastly, you can body-weight shrug. Instead of doing dips, lock your elbows and shrug that-away. I've tried it, didn't like it, but it works. Another way is doing chair dips with feet elevated. Same deal: lock your elbows and shrug thataway, which I found to be more comfortable than the former option. Hey, when you don't have access to gym gear you gotta' find a work-around, right?
Oh, and in terms of frequency I personally wouldn't shrug more than twice a week. The reason for this is that if you're also benching, rowing, deadlifting and performing shoulder press exercises, your traps are getting hammered each week. Hence the reason I don't do a kajillion sets, just the AMRAP x 3 at a weight I can handle. True, you may be able to handle more workload than I, but do keep this in mind.
CONCLUSION
Well, I hope that helps whanau but wait, there's more: your traps run up the back of your neck and a lot of people, myself included, have gotten a much more fuller, thicker neck through exercises that either directly target the traps or indirectly do as a result of spill-over. So that's a bonus. You see some guys with big chests and a pencil neck and it's always a wtf moment whereas a big-necked dude with no chest development looks normal. You don't wonder where his chest went. Lift on.
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