Chapters:
00:00 Intro
00:33 Myth 1: Don’t need to train your traps, or even that training traps is unaesthetic
01:17 Myth 2: Shrugs are the best upper trap exercises
08:10 Myth 3: Deadlifts don’t train your traps, because they’re isometric contractions
11:23 Myth 4: Keep head back
13:13 Outro
Transcript:
Hey! Hey, you! Do you have teeny tiny shoulders? You do, don’t you? And that’s because “they” have filled your head with four myths that are keeping your shoulders small instead of yoked. By the end of this video, you will ascend to yokedom.
The first and foremost myth that’s keeping your shoulders small, instead of yoked, is that you don’t need to train your traps. Yes, there are some juiced up bodybuilders that don’t need to train their traps at all and they’re still overly big. And there are also some individuals just by the shape of their traps that makes them look very big, so they don’t need to train them. For the vast majority of viewers, though, at least men I found in my experience, and this is something I’ve changed my own mind on, that training the traps is vital to get you that yoked look and it has a very big impact on your total shoulder size. You can roughly mimic the visual appearance of having bigger traps by rolling the traps. So now that we’ve determined that you probably should be training your traps, let’s talk about how to train your traps.
Which brings us to the second myth, which is that dumbbell or barbell shrugs are the best way to train your traps. The traps in many textbooks are being depicted as relatively simple shoulder elevators, which means they do the shrugging motion. They elevate the scapulae. However, some research indicates that the traps are actually not a direct shoulder elevator. A famous paper by Johnson et al. concluded that the essentially transverse orientation of the upper and middle fibers of the trapezius precludes any action as elevators of the scapula, as commonly depicted. They’re saying that the essentially transverse orientation, meaning the fibers run relatively horizontal, precludes any action as elevators, they’re saying because the fibers of the upper traps, you can see it yourself as well, they run almost horizontal. They are not vertical, right. Some of the very upper upper fibers are almost vertical, but most of the fibers of the upper traps run almost horizontal. In fact, the distinction between the middle and the upper traps is often made by the orientation of the fibers, so if the fibers run fully horizontal, they are middle, but anything that runs slightly up diagonally becomes upper traps. So most of those fibers, they run almost horizontal there like slightly diagonally upwards. And that’s not a good line of pull to produce shoulder elevation. So does this mean that standard shrugs don’t train the upper traps at all?
Well, we actually have a study that kind of suggests that this is true. A study by Conley et al. found that a full body training program, done four times per week for 12 weeks in recreationally trained subjects, so not elite lifters or anything, did not stimulate significant upper trap hypertrophy. And this program included all of the conventional exercises that most people would say train the traps. Namely deadlifts, mid-thigh pulls, barbell rows, conventional shrugs and overhead presses. That’s pretty much all of the conventional big lifts that most people would associate with training the traps, at least to some degree. Now, lack of intensity was not the issue because they did have growth in their quads, and, seeing as they were only recreationally trained, you would expect them to gain muscle mass over a serious 12 week training block. The measurements were done via MRI scans, which are highly reliable. Moreover, they also found that a group doing that training program but adding neck extensions did grow the neck muscle significantly, although it still didn’t make a difference for the upper traps. So the study shows that if you want to get a bigger neck, not specifically the traps or the shoulders, then you have to do specific neck training, which is also a good take home message. But it also suggests that traditional exercises for the traps may not be that effective.
Now, I don’t think that shrugs don’t train the traps at all, even overhead presses and the like, deadlifts for sure, they train the traps to at least some degree, and I think this is likely a case of what’s called type one error. Just because this one study didn’t find significant muscle growth it doesn’t mean that you cannot stimulate muscle growth with these exercises. Moreover, biomechanically the traps are clearly involved in shoulder elevation, even if they do not produce a direct shoulder elevation moment. What happens is that they pull on the clavicle, it’s like they’re pulling up the whole shoulder complex internally. So more medially, right. Instead of just pulling directly up, like just raising the scapula, elevating the scapula, the shoulder blades, what they do is they pull medially on the clavicle. So they kind of pull inwards. And that’s, you can also see it like when you’re doing a shrug, it’s not like your shoulder goes straight up. You cannot do that. It doesn’t go up like this. It goes kind of, it rotates inward like this. And that’s because of the pull from the upper traps that’s pulling up the entire complex of the clavicle and the scapulae. So clearly the traps biomechanically should be involved. And, anecdotally, tons of people have gotten big traps by doing all the conventional exercises. So I definitely wouldn’t say that shrugs don’t train the upper traps. However, there is possibly room for improvement. Indeed.
We also have two other studies that looked at muscle activity levels of shrugs done with various degrees of shoulder abduction. A shoulder abduction is when the arm goes up. So when your elbow goes up towards the side. And what this does is that it aligns the upper fibers that are relatively horizontal in nature much better with the force production that’s required. So we should see higher muscle activity levels during shoulder elevation or scapular elevation when the shoulder is somewhat abducted. And indeed in these studies we do see this. We have one studies showing that 30 degrees, so a little bit of abduction is better than 0. 0 meaning the traditional dumbbell shrug or barbell shrug when your arm is straight down at your side. So 30 is better than 0. And then the other study, we found that 90 or even 150 is better than 30. Meaning shrugs with your arms in these positions may be better. However, a big limitation of these studies is that they did not involve training to failure, and that the weights and or intensity standardization technique was not properly done. I’m not going to go into the details of normalization during EMG research, but in this research there was normalization, which is better than in many other studies, but it was not ideally done. And that means that we should take these studies with some degree of salt. However, given that we have these studies and the biomechanics and the other studies suggesting that traditional exercises might not be ideal or might not produce a very robust growth in the traps, so I do think that the research currently suggests that we should be training our traps with shrugging exercises when the shoulder is abducted.
First of all, you might be thinking, how do I abduct the shoulders, because they’re affixed to my body? But if you understand some biomechanics, you might be thinking, how do I abduct the shoulders during a shrugging exercise? Well, you do that with what’s called a wide shrug, which means that you grab the barbell very wide. If you grab the bar very narrow, it’s like this. If you grab the marble much more wide then you get shoulder abduction. You can also do overhead shrugs, fully overhead shrugs, according to one other study might not be ideal because then again, you have that purely vertical force production. It’s probably better to have a wide grip overhead shrug, if you do that. You can also do monkey shrugs. Most people don’t like those though. So in my experience either cable shrugs in between two very far apart cable pulleys or wide grip barbell shrugs are the most practical ways to perform shrugs with your shoulders in abduction.
You’ll notice that the force production, at first, it might feel weird if you’re used to conventional shrugs, but when you’re used to it, you’ll notice it feels actually kind of more natural as well because, as I mentioned, you’re not doing a full scapular elevation with a normal shrug. You’re kind of pulling the shoulder inwards while it goes up. And that’s exactly the movement you do when you have your elbows out to the side. They go inward like this. As for other shoulder exercises training the upper traps, they most likely don’t do so very effectively. If there is no scapular elevation taking place, such as during overhead press or a lateral raise when you’re not actively shrugging during the exercise, I don’t think you’re going to train the traps very well, and that’s supported by the earlier study, which also included overhead presses. Moreover, there is considerable research that even standard dumbbell shrugs, which might not be ideal to begin with, stimulates significantly greater muscle activity than lateral raises or most shoulder rehab exercises. So I think that most shoulder exercises that are not shrugging movements, unless you’re actively shrugging during the movement, which you can do during a lateral raise, for example, you’re not involving the upper traps significantly. You probably don’t have to count that volume if you want to maximally train your traps, or at best it would count 50%, I would say.
Speaking of different exercises to train your traps, that brings us to the 3rd myth, which is that deadlifts don’t train the traps, or that you don’t need to count the volume because they’re isometric muscle contractions. Now deadlifts, or specifically Romanian deadlifts were included in a study that didn’t find significant trap hypertrophy. But I would say that deadlifts rank equally to shrugs in terms of stimulating trap hypertrophy, meaning they’re probably not ideal, but they do a decent job and for sure, we’ve seen anecdotally that many people can get big traps just by doing lots of deadlifts even without doing any dedicated shrugging exercises.
This myth comes down to the more general idea in fitness that isometric muscle contractions are very ineffective to build muscle. And there is some research support for that, but it’s very old. We actually don’t have a lot of studies. And more recent research has shown that long length isometric muscle contractions, meaning that you are doing a static contraction, meaning there’s no movement, but the muscle is at a long length, so it’s relatively stretched, that actually produces very robust and significant hypertrophy, far more than training muscles at short lengths with isometric contractions. So certain isometric contractions might not be good to stimulate muscle hypertrophy, with long length isometric contractions actually seem very capable of stimulating significant muscle growth. And if we think of the mechanical tension that is produced, we also know that during isometric contractions, the muscles can actually produce a lot of force, and thereby mechanical tension, which is the primary stimulus for muscle growth. Moreover, during a deadlift, you’re not just doing an isometric muscle contraction at a relatively long length because usually your shoulders will be somewhat down, they will be pulled down by the weight, meaning it’s a relatively long muscle length for the upper traps, they are somewhat stretched. And it’s not just that, a long length isometric contraction. There’s actually an eccentric overload component because most people when they do deadlifts, their shoulder blades reverse shrug down further, they depress during the exercise as their shoulders are being dragged down by the weight, and they can no longer hold their shoulders up in anatomic position. So for most people a deadlift is actually not just a long length isometric contraction, but even a maximally overloaded eccentric contraction. And those are actually exceptionally good for muscle growth in research.
So I think that standard deadlifts, even if the shoulder is not abducted, are actually a very effective exercise for the traps, on par with traditional shrugs, which it might not be S tier, but it’s certainly a very viable exercise, much better than most other exercises that are not specifically shrugs with the shoulders in abduction. So I would say that the tier list of upper trap exercises goes from S tier or God tier being shrugs with the shoulders in abduction like wide shrugs or cable shrugs with the pulleys being very far apart or overhead shrugs with a wide grip like a snatch grip, those would be S tier, and then below that we have kind of average exercises, good but not optimal. That would be standard shrugs and deadlifts. And then below that we have most other shoulder exercises, including overhead presses. Upright rows might be kind of in between most shoulder exercises and shrugs. It depends a lot on whether you’re actually shrugging during the movement. Anything else is probably Garbage tier for the upper traps. So we’ve established that you probably should be training your traps if you want bigger overall shoulders. And we’ve established that you should be doing shrugs, specifically shrugs with your shoulders in abduction for maximum upper trap hypertrophy.
Now that brings us to the fourth and final myth of this video with regard to how you should be performing your shrugs. The traditional advice, or advice at least that I’ve heard very commonly, is that when you are shrugging you should be keeping your head back. You should be kind of in anatomical military posture, which is a very common and intuitive idea that good technique always kind of looks pretty and you’re standing upright, everything is vertical, everything is aligned. In fact, that is probably not good at all. The best way to perform shrugs, in my view, is actually with the head forward. If you look at how any strongman lifts doing farmer’s walks, for example, they will have their head forward. Why is that? Because you’re stronger that way.
The upper traps are a bi-articulate muscle, and you are stronger when the neck is flexed than when it is extended, because the upper fibers are active at the neck and the scapular complex. Especially the upper fibers, they are more short when the neck is extended and that makes them weaker. In fact, they can even go into active insufficiency, which means that if you do all the way like this, you can notice it for yourself. Now, if you try to shrug, it feels very kind of nod up and you are very weak and most people intuitively, therefore keep their head a little bit flexed. You don’t have to go like all the way forward, but a little bit flex. You can produce more force, more tension, and the muscle is at a longer length, so you may also benefit from that longer length mediated hypertrophy effect. Now you might protest “Hey, this is injurious for the neck, lifting this way will injury your neck!” And that’s probably not true because of that indirect action of the upper traps on the scapula not directly causing elevation moment but pulling up on the clavicle, most of the compressive force is not borne by the cervical spine, the neck, but it is borne by the sternoclavicular joint. And that’s actually very sturdy. That’s why we basically never see people injured themselves in the neck when they are doing shrugs. So shrugs in general, including shrugs with a flexed neck are probably relatively safe.
May this knowledge aid your ascent to yoke them. If you like this type of evidence based fitness content, I’d be honored if you like and subscribe.