Building your upper traps can give you a powerful look, even from the front, as 8-time Mr. Olympia Ronnie Coleman shows here…
He did a lot of heavy deadlifts, which do provide the upper traps with immense stretch overload; however, his main upper-trap move was shrugs…
The shrug is the ultimate, or ideal, exercise you should use to get your upper-trap huge—with a few important details…
It’s best NOT to lock your hands on a barbell. For freedom of movement and independent contraction, go with either dumbbells or cables…
Cables: Use two separate handles, as pictured above, and step back so that you’re retracting up and back for an ideal line of pull…
Dumbbells: Lean slightly forward and shrug to retract your upper traps—like you’re trying to touch your rear delts behind your head (don’t worry, you won’t)…
In either case, shrug with a full range of motion—from full stretch to a tight contraction.
NOTE: The ideal exercise identified and described in the past few newsletters—and ones coming up—are NOT the result of my genius. They come from Mr. America and biomechanics expert Doug Brignole…
His analytic brilliance helped me understand how these exercises are the best of the best for getting the most mass bang for your effort buck…
To prove it, he won the 2019 AAU Drug-Free Mr. Universe at age 59, using only ONE IDEAL EXERCISE for each muscle group…
For more on his training and how it evolved—including sets, reps, ideal exercises and more—see Never Stop Growing.
Till next time, train hard—and smart—for BIG results.
Steve Holman
Former Editor in Chief, Iron Man Magazine
X-Rep.com
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