Build Up Trapezius Muscle With Barbells Shrugs

Shrugs exercises are great for strengthening and increasing the power of trapezius muscles. They are done using barbell or dumbbells, but you make use of other types of free weights too. Trapezius muscle represents the muscle between your back of your neck and shoulder, and its training is usually included in your back and shoulder training. It was said in one of the previous posts that training with free weights is very beneficial for growing muscle mass. Free weights are especially good for seasonal bodybuilders.

When you work with free weights your body needs to balance the weight with no assistance, so muscles work harder,  and this means greater muscle growth. Since shrugs belong to weight free category of exercises, it becomes obvious that they very effective exercises when you want to pack on and are imminent to all bodybuilding workouts.

There are two main ways of doing shrugs: in front your thighs shrugs and behind of back shrugs. For better results, choose to do barbell shrugs as they allow you to work with bigger weights and ensure a body balance.

Must Read: Most Common Errors Admitted When Building Delta and Trapezius Muscles

In front Barbell Shrugs:

During this exercises trapezius, muscles are involved in work in a fully extend. To do it, take a standing position, with your feet at shoulder width apart. Grip the barbell with the lowered hands in front of you. Keep the hands at shoulders width apart.  Note that arms and shoulders have to be completely relaxed, while back is tensioned.

After taking the right start position to proceed to exercise execution. From the starting position elevate your shoulders as high as possible, at the ears level, while keeping your arms completely straight.  When you reach the top position, slowly lower your shoulder to the start position. Make sure in the top position keep your shoulder in the shrug position for 5 seconds.

That is, shoulders movement will have the following path, straight up your shoulders - five second pause- lower them as much as possible to the starting position. Begin with a lighter weight, and after one approach do 3-4 others of 12 reps with larger weights. The main role of the first approach with a lighter weight is to warm-up your body, thus preventing you from any injury.

Must Read: The Benefits of Warm Up Exercises Before Workout

Important Tricks

-Keep your hands constantly turned off, do not try to force your forearms to raise the bar as high as possible. Hands in this exercise have just one task to keep the bar, while not working at all.
-In case of weak grip, that is if the barbell slips out of the hands before the shoulder reached the top level, use the wrist straps that indirectly strengthen your grip.
-During the execution hold the barbell close to the body, do not push it forward, since this will put more load on deltas muscles.
-For greater results, perform a high number of reps for each set up to 12. The experience shown that performing a higher number of reps gives better results in terms of muscle growth.
-Do not roll your shoulders forward or backwards at the top of the movement. Also, there are people who even alternate the direction of the roll with every reps they do. This is a huge mistake which can cause serious injury and gives nothing to you.

Behind Back Shrugs:

Along with the front barbell shrugs, behind the back shrugs develop trap muscles, giving them solidity and expressiveness. The main difference is that barbell is situated behind you back, and not in front of you thighs. There are many athletes who consider behind the back shrugs more effective than front ones, since during it trap to get more load and thus increase size faster.

Must Read our Article: Steps / Tips to Keep in Shape Your Muscle Mass After Steroid Cycles.

Also, since trapezius muscles are located on the rear side of the body, the barbell have to be kept behind it. It is up to you to choose the most appropriate method of training trapezoids. A good idea is to alternate approaches. Thereby, the first and the third approach consist of in front of thigh shrugs, and the second and fourth behind the back. However, this is exclusively your choice.

The technique of exercise execution is the same as in front shrugs. In a standing position, with your feet at the shoulders width apart. With your arms straight below at the shoulder width apart grab the barbell. Just remember, arms do not work during this exercise. Do the shrugs by just elevating the shoulders straight up and then coming straight down.

In the top position, make  a one second pause and then return to the starting position. In case of behind the back shrugs, you can follow the same amount of reps and sets (3-4 sets of 12 reps). A good advice is to place the barbell on the rack or on the bench, so as to raise the barbell from the floor, holding straight back is extremely problematic.

You can choose to do described types of shrugs using dumbbells instead of barbells. They are especially recommended for beginner bodybuilders, who have not get used yet to larger weight training. Also, adding such variations into your training routine, will help you to combat boredom and challenge your muscle.

Regarding weights to work with, is recommended to choose weights that get you exhausted in the end of 12 reps. Make shrugs exercise a part of your shoulder workout, adding to it other exercises that work the shoulder from a different angle. Dumbbell lateral and in front  raises, rows are just some of the exercises to consider adding to your shoulder training.

So, as read barbell shrugs are a very effective exercises for building trapezius muscles. Whatever this is an in front shrugs or behind the back,  barbell shrugs have to be present in your shoulder workout. The best would be to alternate them during a workout, since this will challenge the muscle and make it grow.

The most important thing to remember when it comes to barbell shrugs is what you have to perform the holding your arms straight below, and only elevating the shoulder up to the ear level. Once you reach this position, take a one second pause, and then straight back down to the initial positions.

Make sure you have understand that barbells shrugs are only about raising your shoulder, while you keep the barbell in your straight below arms. Also, avoid rolling the the shoulders forward or backwards when you elevate your shoulders. This is pointless, uneffective and put you on risk every time you do it. Many of those who use to do barbell shrugs recommend to them in front of a mirror.

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It allow you to better monitor the execution of exercises, and make sure you move only shoulders when performing it. On the other hand, other people totally ignore miroir while training, since it diminish your attention and thus makes your training less effective. Whatever you will choose, looking or not in the mirror, remember that barbells shrugs are very effective weight exercises for an upper body part, especially trapezius muscle.