Opinion of 2 Trap Exercises

Bigger Stronger Leaner Christian Thibaudeau Coaching
1

Christian, I was wondering if you have any experience and or opinion about 2 exercises I’ve seen lately. The first one is kneeling cleans. This isn’t Louie Simmons’ jump cleans where you end up on your feet, but simply a clean from the floor from the kneeling position and ending in a kneeling position.

The second is eccentric-only overload shrug. You either use a bar in the rack or a trap bar and start the pull/squat with the traps pre-shrugged. Then in the fully standing position you un-shrug, or perform the eccentric part of the shrug, place the bar back down, reset the traps and repeat. I suppose it could be done w zercher rack pulls too. I know that some people do farmers walks while isometrically holding the shrug.

Thanks

2

I’ve done kneeling cleans/snatches and I use them from time to time with some olympic lifters, specifically those who either don’t get the hips involved in their lift (are super quads dominant) or those who do “pull and pray” in their snatch (basically throwing the bar in the air and catching it, instead if pulling it up).

I wouldn’t say that it is an important exercise. It can serve a purpose but it certainly is not as effective as it looks cool.

Never did the eccentric shrugs. Might try it one day since I’ll try everything traps related. But just from visualizing it, I don’t like it. I’ll have to try it to be sure though