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Trap Notes
I was asked in some earlier threads about conventional barbell shrugs and also about improving range of motion in the Hise Shrug and I wanted to post some general tips to answer those questions plus add a bit to the discussion.
Regardless of the exercise you select, you must get as full of range of motion as you can possible achieve. Now this will vary with different exercises, but maximizing rom is still a primary objective.
Most guys that have a difficult time with trap work in general tend to have tight or restricted range of motion in their traps. I have been doing clinical exams for nearly 20 years and
99 % of the patients that I examine have a very restrictive range of motion in their traps and that includes those who lift or particpate in other sports. Stand in front of the mirror and see if you can touch your traps to at least the base of your earlobes? If not, you need to improve this. The best way to do this is to do bodyweight shrugs ( ie, no bar, no weights) as many times a day as you can for several weeks. Do them when you wake up in the morning, do them in the shower, do them while in the elevator, do them while standing in line at the restaurant-yeah, you will get funny looks, but who cares. do them 50-100 times a day for two weeks and then try the earlobe shrug again-I bet you will improve and will notice a difference in your trap training.
Hise Shrug-I would advise that you do these in front of a mirror in order to ensure that you are getting the proper height. You also need to work on keeping the muscles of the face and jaw in somewhat of a "relaxed state"", or at least with minimal tension here. Practice with light weight and high reps-hold the top position for a a few seconds, One really effective trick in any type of trap work is to reach the top position, count to five and then strive to push the weight even higher for 1-2 seconds (ouch) Hise shrugs are best done with higher reps,,somewhere in the 15-20 range. You also need to control your breathing and timing. You want to be taking a deep breath and filling up your lungs as your elevating the weight and then at the top ( peak contraction) and bottom, you will be taking several short breaths-almost in the same way they teach pregnant women to breathe during labor ( Lamaze) side note: take some time and read up on breathing techniques during labor-their purpose is to block pain and you can learn the same techniques to block pain and get more reps during a workout-more on that later.
Barbell shrugs-some guys swear by them, but I am not one of them-I think there are better ways to hit the traps and your arms and hands get tired before the traps do. I like the Starr Power Shrug a lot better where you are using your legs and hips to elevate the weight at the start of the move or from the hang position-very, very effective. If you want to do regular barbell shrugs, do what I call the breakdown method in that you do a set number of reps of regular shrugs and then when you are unable to get the full range of motion, you dip the weight down and use your legs and hips to extend the set-sort of like doing strict military presses untl you can get no more reps and then doing push presses.
two more favorite trap moves:
Overhead shrugs-take a LIGHT weight and a wide grip ( same one you would use for overhead squats) and then using your shoulder girdle and traps-extend the weight as high as you can using only traps-high reps are in order here-do 20 reps-the first ten you will be saying to yourself-this is some kind of joke-this is easy, at rep #12 the pain will start to kick in and by rep 16 you will be cussing my name-try it and see. You can also use dumbells as well, but its a bit harder to keep your arms locked.
Elevated farmers walk-take two heavy dumbells and do a normal farmers walk, but keep the traps up as high as possibole the entire time-simple enough
hope that answers the questions and hope it inspires further discussion.
Keith
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