[Heavy metal music playing]
Yeah, no, don t keep rolling.
What's up guys, Jeff Cavaliere, athleanx.com.
What you see behind me is a bunch of different trap exercises, many of which you either do right
now or you're going to want to start doing by the time this video is over. And I'm going to make
your job a lot easier, because I'm going to show you the ones you should focus on by ranking
them from the worst all the way up to the best, so that you know which ones you should invest your
time in to get the gains that you're after.
Now, as always, it's important to understand
the criteria for which these exercises are going to be judged on. Because they all, first
and foremost, have to be able to build muscle. And before you think, yeah, here. Well not
really, that's just part of the traps. We want them to be able to build here, here and here
because that is the entire trap muscle. And it's possible with the right exercise selection
to cover all your bases. That being said, all the exercises on this list always have to
be safe exercise choices. As you'll see here at the bottom of the list, some not so much.
And we kick it all off at the bottom of the barrel as I break out my red marker to cover
the first of the Worst exercises. And can we just get this one out of the way? Can we
talk about the Upright Row? Now, look, I understand you might point me towards a video
that you got click baited into thinking you were going to find the reason why the Upright Row was
actually good. Only to have the person essentially backtrack with all the same reasons why I've been
saying they're not so good for all these years.
Guys, there's a better alternative to the
Upright Row. Sure, they can hit the traps, but at what expense? When you raise your
shoulders up and then drive them down with additional weight into internal rotation,
you're recreating one of the physical therapist tools for provoking pain and testing for
impingement. I'll pass. So, for me, guys, I'll put the big red X first and foremost through
the upright row and the Worst of the Worst.
Moving on, I get to stick with my red marker as
we stick in the Worst of the Worst category. This time for a Shrug, but not any Shrug. This Shrug,
the Rolling Shrug. I m not sure who invented this, but it does no extra benefit for you, and it
does a whole lot of detrimental things. The bottom line is, when you allow your shoulders
to round forward, you do two things to that glenohumeral joint. One, you're bringing it into
internal rotation, which again will start to cause some of that stress onto the anterior shoulder
capsule. The second thing is you're adding a compressive force to that joint that has an
effect on the clavicle or collarbone.
As the collarbone sits down onto something called
the thoracic outlet, you can get some of the symptoms of Thoracic Outlet Syndrome, which can
lead to numbness or tingling or vascular issues in your arm. And the rolling component isn't
helping you at all anyway, because the real main function of the upper traps is simply going
to be lift up and down. So, what I do here with the Rolling Shrugs is just roll right on past
them to better exercises that lie ahead.
I stick with my red marker one more time as we
finish up the Worst of the Worst, this time with the Above the Knee Rack Pole. And once again, this
exercise is causing a lot of the same issues that I just had with the Rolling Shrug. When you have
that much weight in your hand held out in front of your body, it sends those shoulders into that
protracted state and causes that compression, also traction down the arm that can create some
of those thoracic outlet issues. That being said, there is some light at the end of the tunnel.
There is a version of the Rack Pull that you could do coming up later on. That's going to rank
higher because it alleviates a lot of those issues that I have. But for now, let's suffice it to
say that it also gets a big red X and belongs in the Worst of the Worst category.
And so, with that, I now get to break out my blue marker as we work our way up into
the Better category. All good trap exercises, but still some limitations that are holding them
back from being up at the top with the best. That being said, I want to start with the Incline Y
Raise and most of the exercises in this category are more corrective in nature. In other words,
not the biggest muscle builders, but doing an all-important job of hitting different areas of
the traps that you're not used to hitting. And with the Incline Y Raise, we're getting the lower
traps very effectively. A lot of people out there don't even train their lower traps or even know,
again, as I mentioned in the beginning, that they even exist. But you can train them really well
with this exercise and very, very light weights. The key to lower trap development is that whenever
you perform any overhead weighted exercise, even like an Overhead Shoulder Press, you're
going to provide more stability for the scapula, giving you safer biomechanics on the exercise. The
bottom line is bigger weights don't always equal bigger traps. Especially when those overlooked
areas just aren't getting hit often enough. And that's why the Incline Y Raise gets the
first blue circle in the Better category.
Next up is an exercise that you would think would
be at the top of every one of my lists. Hell, I would even try to find a way to do it as a
leg exercise. We're talking about Face Pulls, but not so fast, because the Face Pull does a
really good job of hitting some of the traps, but not everywhere. You see, there's no elevation
going on here, so the upper traps are not really in focus, and the lower traps here are not
really doing much of anything either. But we do know that this is a good middle trap exercise,
as well as obviously hitting the rhomboids and the rear delts, and it's just a great exercise
for building up the overall health of your shoulder. It belongs in the Better category,
but we'll make it better, just stick around.
Next up is another one of those small
exercises that pays big dividends if you start to incorporate it into your programing. And
again, this is another one of those corrective exercises that actually plays an important part
in all my Athlean-X programs. It's called an Urlacher. And what's nice about this exercise is
it's also incorporating some rotator cuff into the already existing upper trap and middle
trap work that it's accomplishing. Again, this is not an exercise that you're getting your
benefits from the amount of weight you're using, but more so from developing that synchronization
between the components of the exercise, moving smoothly through elevation and retraction
and external rotation as you bring the dumbbells up to the top. Again, good shoulder biomechanics
rely on you having good segmental ability to control all portions of the shoulder movement as
your arm moves through space. Remember, it's a three-dimensional joint with a lot of available
movement. If you don't get it right, you can be asking for some issues down the road. So why not
invest just a little bit of extra time into good shoulder exercises? The Urlacher is one that's
also going to help you to develop your traps.
This next exercise in the Better category
is an interesting one, because it introduces a different function of the traps that
you might not be leaning into right now, and we call it the Trap Pulldown. And we lean into
the shoulder stabilizing action of the upper traps during traditional pulldown. See, what you do
here is you take a much narrower grip, and your goal is not to drive with the lats, or even bring
your elbows very far down at all. Instead, what you're going to try to do is pull the bar down by
shrugging up with the shoulders. In other words, counteract that pulldown by driving up into
the weight with your Shoulder Shrug. Trust me, you'll feel that right away. And what's
happening here again is you're tapping into that stabilization capability of the traps during
a weighted pulldown. And what's nice is you can use a pretty good amount of weight here to create
this big contraction that you're feeling.
Don't be misled by the behind the neck positioning
of the bar. Your elbows are squarely in the scapular plane out in front of your body, avoiding
any of the issues that would come from behind the neck pressing or pulldowns. The bottom line is, we
know that isometric contractions can contribute to overall muscle development, especially if they
occur in the stretch position. We'll get to that later, but for now, the Trap Pulldowns wrap up
our Better category with another blue circle.
And now we continue up the ranks. This time I
break out my yellow marker as we move into the Better Still category. And the first exercise
up for me here is the Farmer's Carry and talk about isometric based exercises. This is one, and
it's just a little bit more superior to the last one because there's some additional benefits here.
Number one, the isometric contraction is occurring more in that lengthen or stretch position of the
traps, which has been shown to be a good stimulus for hypertrophy. But we also have those additional
benefits making this a more multidimensional exercise option. You have the ability to
train your forearms and grip strength here, or to perform this as a conditioning exercise, or
really even just to work on your mental toughness, because this could be a ball buster if you have
to do it for any length of time. But because this exercise has an incredibly high capacity to be
loaded and more importantly, progressively loaded, you'll find that this exercise will be
able to pay big dividends not just now, but in the future for you as a means of building
bigger traps. And therefore, it belongs as the first in our Better Still category.
Remember I told you I'd fix those Rack Pulls? Well, it's time to fix the Rack Pulls, and all
we have to do is take them from above the knee to below the knee. Because that fixes everything.
Why? Because we're changing the mechanics of the upper body when you perform the exercise. You
see, when you perform an Above the Knee Rack Pull like we talked about, you're getting all
that protraction stress on the shoulders that leads to all the issues I already said. But
when you perform them from below the knee, you're transitioning this more closely to a
deadlift, and by performing them from that lower elevation, you're forcing your torso to
tilt more forward and allowing your scapula to have to be retracted and set before you perform
the exercise. The setting of the scapula prevents that excessive thoracic rounding that leads to all
those issues we already discussed. Not to mention, this is a great accessory exercise for those that
are trying to build up to the full deadlift from the floor. The point is that even though certain
exercises look very similar; the details always matter. And that's what I stress to you on
this channel. And because of those details, the changes were made to pull this exercise all
the way up into now the Better Still category.
Third up in our Better Still category now is
something called the Plate Trap Raise. And this is another one of those exercises that could
be considered a little bit more corrective, but you can perform it with slightly more
weight. But the goal here once again, is to get your focus all the time off of the upper
traps, and this time shifted all the way down to the bottom once again to those lower traps. And
this exercise does a great job if you perform it correctly. You want to take that grip on the sides
of the plate rather than a palms down positioning, because as the plate gets up overhead, you don't
want to be an internal rotation, but be more in a neutral position. Also here, yes, the shoulders
will be working the front delts specifically during the first half of the exercise, but the
real action actually happens from the shoulders up as we go into that elevation overhead. If you
wanted to, you could actually shorten the range of motion to perform just the upper half from fully
extended overhead down just to parallel to the floor. Whichever way you perform it, there's no
way around it, this exercise is a great way to hit the lower traps with a good amount of weight,
and it belongs as a Better Still exercise.
Next up in the Better Still category is the
anti-upright row and that for me is the Dumbbell High Pull. Now look I'll stand here and defend
this exercise all the way till the day I die because I'm that confident in its superiority to
the Upright Row. Why? Because I can accomplish the same exact things that we were trying to do with
the upright row in that safer shoulder position, because I can keep the elbows beneath the wrist.
And what that does is it takes me out of internal rotation and puts me into external rotation.
At guess what, no compromise to what you're doing for your traps or even for your shoulders
in this case. And the only thing that's keeping this exercise from ranking even higher is that
when it comes to building traps, it's one of the secondary benefits, it's also obviously building
those middle and rear delts. But because you're also performing this exercise with a slight lean
forward, you're going to also effectively hit those rhomboids and here in the middle traps to
make this even a more well-rounded trap exercise. If you want the cliff notes Upright Rows suck and
the Dumbbell High Pull doesn't. And any attempt to say well, I haven't gotten hurt yet with the
Upright Row just isn't good enough for me. So, the dumbbell high pull gets yet another yellow
circle for a Better Still exercise option.
Next up, we wrap up our Better still Category,
this time with an interesting variation of a shrug, and it's called the Haney Shrug, and it's
named after the eight-time Mr. Olympia, Lee Haney. And he used to say, if the traps are a muscle on
your back, then why are we training them from the front, why don't we train them from the back?
And all you did was put the bar behind his back and pull up like this. And it's an interesting
exercise variation because you're still getting that elevation, getting that upper trap work
that you're looking for. But you also can get more of that middle trap work because you can get
more shoulder retraction due to the fact that you have to lean forward when you do this. Now, the
compromise is you're not going to be able to use as much weight. That's fine, except you're going
to be able to get a better contraction. And Lee Haney, like myself, is someone that believes that
it's not always about the amount of weight you're lifting on Shrugs you've probably lifted a ton of
weight throughout your entire lifting career on shrugs. But have you ever dropped the weight and
focused more on the quality of the contraction? If you haven t, this is a great opportunity
to do it, and the exercise itself is going to force you to. But it wraps up our Better Still
category, the Haney Shrug deserves to be here.
And next we continue our way up the rankings, this
time I get to break out my green marker for the first time as we work our way into the Almost
Best category. That's right, Almost Best. But we do get a chance to take one of the almost best
exercises of all time, that Face Pull I promised, and make it even better with the added extension
at the end of every repetition. And what this does is it adds on to the already existing work
that we're doing for those middle traps by incorporating that lower trap work that happens
whenever we raise our arms up overhead. But look what else is happening. Because the resistance
is not just below us, but in front of us too. It's also resisting that overhead shoulder
extension and retraction, which gives us additional benefits for the exercise. This truly
is one of the best exercises you can possibly do, taking that Face Pull and making it even better.
And it belongs in my Almost Best category. You just can't weight it a whole ton, but you're
not going to need to to see its benefits. This one deserves to be surrounded in green as
the first in the Almost Best Category.
Now, up to this point, any time we talked about
middle trap development our exercise selections were those that were probably a little bit on
the lighter end in terms of how we're weighting them. But not anymore, because the Wraparound
Row is one of my favorite ways to start to introduce some real weight to the development
of those middle trap muscles. And the key here is to actually perform this with a crossover grip.
With the right hand holding the left grip handle, and with the left hand holding the
right grip handle. And keeping your elbows as tight to your body as you wrap them
around and almost try to touch them together, with your spine being the meeting point. Of
course, it's not going to happen, but what will happen is you're going to light up these middle
traps like you never had before. And again, with equal parts ability to feel the contraction and
still load them enough to create that overload, this exercise is just one you don't want to skip.
And because it does it so well, I put it all the way up here in the Almost Best category, because
it hits this area in such a good, focused way.
Now, as we continue on here and work our way
all the way to the tippy top of this list, it's about time we start talking about the
Dumbbell or Barbell Shrug. But to me there's a difference and actually, it really matters to
you what you're doing already. Because you see, like Lee Haney said, it's not always about
having to load the exercises up when you're trying to train your traps. So, for me, if you're
already deadlifting a lot and are doing it for a long period of time, you're likely not going
to benefit from the continued focus on heavy, heavy Barbell Shrugs. Instead, I would invite you
to actually start to consider Dumbbell Shrugs as an option. On the other hand, if you're
not doing a lot of deadlifting right now, then that's where I would say to do the Barbell
Shrug, because you can load it heavier and expose your traps to more of that tension stress, as
well as just the overall loads. That being said, the Dumbbell Shrug has the additional benefit
of being able to be held in neutral out at your sides, which will put less of that stress on your
shoulders. That would come from having that bar out in front of you and the Barbell Shrug. Either
way, it goes without saying, no matter which you choose, the Dumbbell or Barbell Shrug does a great
job of building up those upper traps of yours, and therefore belongs in the selections when
you're talking about the Best of the Best, or in this case, Almost Best trap exercises.
Now, before we get to the trap exercise that wears the crown, there is one more that demands your
consideration here in the almost best category, because it applies the science of trap training.
And we're talking about the Cable Angled Shrug. What's interesting here is if you were to look
at the direction of the upper trap fibers, it doesn't run straight up and down. Meaning
that a straight up and down movement like the traditional Shrug wouldn't ideally hit the muscle
or allow it to contract to its fullest. So, what will? The Angle Shrug. Because we can do this
with a lot of weight and perform it with just a simple cable machine down the low angle position.
And what you're trying to do is basically allow your arm to drift out to the side to put those
trap fibers in a better alignment to pull. What results when you do this is perhaps one of the
strongest contractions you've ever felt during a trap exercise. And maybe even more superior to
you because of the novelty of it then any Dumbbell or Barbell Shrug you've already done. It's one of
those exercises that, ever since I discovered it for the first time, have never stopped using it
in my trap training approach and it's definitely one that I think you should try as well. But it
caps off our list of the Almost Best exercises with that well-deserved green circle.
And so, with all exercises bearing some color here behind me except for one, it leaves only one
to be the best of the best. And yes, it is a shrug variation, but it's the Trap Bar Shrug. And for
the same rationale we just talked about, it gives you better alignment for targeting those trap
muscles effectively, or at least the upper traps, because with the trap bar I have a wider grip. My
arms are held out about 20 or 30 degrees from my side, again giving me a better angle of attack to
hit those upper traps. And again, when it comes to loading here, it certainly meets that criteria. We
can load this exercise incredibly heavy. And once again, because of the neutral grip positioning of
the handles at your sides rather than out in front of you, I find it to be a safer option for those
of us who are going to load the exercise up with a lot of plates. The bottom line is through safety,
science and strength capacity, there is only one best and for me it is the Trap Bar Shrug getting
that green star here or crown whatever it looks like to you, in the Best of the Best category.
If you're looking for others in this series, check out the Chest Exercises Ranked video here and also
the Shoulder Exercises Ranked video there. Guys, if you haven't done so, click Subscribe and turn
on your Notifications so you never miss a video from me when we put one out. Full programs
available over at athleanx.com. See you!
