Which exercises are BEST to grow traps?
Stick to stable exercises with lots of ROM, that are limited by the target muscle group and that you can load properly. For upper traps, this includes strict shrugs, both with straight and slightly abducted arms. You should probably avoid Farmer’s Walks, Power Shrugs and Rack Pulls if your goal is muscle growth. Read on to find out why.
N.B. During this article, “traps” and “upper traps” will be changed interchangeably. While “upper traps” is the more anatomically precise term, I think I value brevity over excessive pedantry.
The Upper Trap Specialisation Template is out now and is 33% off for the next week! No discount code required. Check it out!
Strict Shrugs
Strict shrugs should probably be the bread and butter of your direct upper trap training. While you do get some robust stimulus from compound exercises, it likely doesn’t compare to full ROM, strict shrugs on a set-to-set comparison.
You’ll likely want to make use of a variety of implements throughout different training phases. Because the traps recover from a lot of volume, but there aren’t many great upper trap isolation exercises, varying the implement (e.g. dumbbells vs barbell vs smith machine vs machine vs ez-bar vs trap bar) can be helpful in implementing adequate exercise variation.
Strict Shrugs with Arms Slightly Abducted
For what it’s worth, there is some EMG data out there showing higher EMG amplitudes when shrugs are performed with the arms slightly abducted. It’s really not clear that this would lead to more muscle growth long-term. However, because exercise selection for trap isolation exercises is so limited to begin with, having some form of variation can be useful to ensure full/even development and to decrease the likelihood of overuse injuries. An example of this could be a leaning shrug or a trap bar shrug, or a slightly wider grip barbell shrug.
What exercises you SHOULDN’T do for upper trap growth
Farmer’s Walks
Farmer’s Walks have to be one of the most overrated trap exercises. First, for the upper traps, it is an isometric exercise – the upper traps do not shorten or lengthen during the exercise. While farmer’s walks do train the upper traps at long muscle lengths, they also generate a lot of fatigue for other muscle groups. Because you are carrying the load, you’re fatiguing your calves, quads, hamstrings, glutes, erectors, forearms, upper back and even arms and delts to a degree while providing them with minimal stimulus – again, the ROM is either non-existent or minimal.
“Power Shrugs”
These suffer from a lot of the same issues as farmer’s walks. By cheating the weight up, cutting ROM and not controlling the eccentric, you’re limiting the ROM through which the traps are contracting. Also, because you’re cheating the weight up using other muscle groups, you’re turning an exercise that causes very limited systemic fatigue to one that causes lots of it, with likely no increase in upper trap growth.
Rack Pulls
Again, this exercise is an isometric exercise for the traps. However, because you’re also lifting the weight (how this helps with upper trap growth only God knows), you’re also generating a lot of fatigue for your erectors, quads, hamstrings and glutes – with little concomitant stimulus, since the ROM is so small and the muscle lengths are also quite short.
That wraps up the traps. Traps aren’t a very complicated bodypart to train, so this post was noticeably shorter than the guides for exercise selection for other bodyparts.
Reminder: if you’d like to see what effective upper trap programming looks like, check out the Upper Trap Specialisation Template. For the first week, it will be 33% off!
