Training Your Traps With Variety

By Joe Pietaro
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Updated: July 16, 2016

When you hear the expression, “It looks like this guy has no neck,” that is a backward compliment. By growing your trapezius muscles to the point where they begin shrouding your neck, you have given off the appearance sought by many – but gone about the wrong way.

First of all, the traps can be trained with either the shoulders or back – and possibly even both. You can make a case for all three so just go with the one that suits you best. There really is no right or wrong.

Do yourself a favor and don’t get into a rut of performing the same movement all of the time for traps, either. Even if you swear by shoulder shrugs, you can mix it up in so many ways that you will not be in a comfort zone.

The main two exercises for your traps are:

SHRUGS

*Barbell or dumbbells

*Standing or seated

*Free weights, Hammer Strength or cables

*Front or rear shrugs

UPRIGHT ROWS

*Barbell or dumbbells

*Free weights or cables

Don’t be afraid to go heavy, but do so only when you can control the weight with proper form and do at least eight reps on your final set. And jump right into some drop down sets to really feel the burn. You can not imagine the pain you will feel after doing barbell shrugs with at 225 pounds and then a triple drop down with dumbbells ranging from 50 to 30 pounds.