Traps - I Really Need Some Help

[quote]anonym wrote:
hawaiilifterMike wrote:
zephead4747 wrote:

As someone who has really large traps without training them directly, I can guarentee you anyone like me, or not like me in that reguard who is handing out excercises is parroting advice or do not realize they have good genetics for that body part. my traps are light years ahead of every other bodypart on my body except maybe my thighs. TO balence them out I would probably have to gain about 70+ more pounds without adding any more trap size to look balenced.

Please post pics of said over-developed traps.
Thanks.

Them be some pretty big traps.[/quote]

Since zephead4747 did not post a pic of his really large traps, I will post a pic of my little traps that I got from doing mainly bb shrugs. I will start to do rack pull more consistently to see if they explode!

[quote]Professor X wrote:
Getting Closer wrote:
X when you do shrugs do you find it best to stretch it out at the bottom and squeeze at the top cause like I said earlier i feel it more the next day when I just go heavy and don’t worry too much about the squeeze but my traps are still pretty small?

I squeeze NOW. I did not for years when I was really building them at first. I squeeze on a lot of movements now, but that is because I have maxed out most machines and I feel that squeezing the muscle at the peak of contraction helps with more growth. My Hammer Strength shrug only holds 5 plates a side. I don’t use straps and since I can handle that well, I squeeze at the top to create greater “resistance”.

In other words, bodybuilding is about progression. What some huge guy does now may not be what he did to get that big to begin with…it may simply be what he is doing to take it even further.[/quote]

that reminds me of johnnie jackson. the guy has incredible traps and says he doesn’t do shrugs anymore, but he still does deadlifts. the people who say JUST deadlifts will give you massive traps always point this out and say ‘look at johnnie jackson he only deadlifts and doesnt do shrugs and has such massive traps!’.

But they don’t realize is that he has done them for years in the past. heck if I recall i think he mentioned going up to 700+lb shrugs early on. It’s only recently that he stopped doing them because his traps were growing too fast! a reliable sign of the efficiency of shrugs.

What has given me respectable upper back size, particulary in the traps are shrugs.

All kinds of shrugs.
Heavy shrugs, high rep shrugs, power shrugs. Shrugs with a barbell. Shrugs on a calf raise machine. Overhead shrugs (I’m not actually recommending that for you, but it worked amazingly well for me for some reason).

Guess what I would recomend for you: shrugs.

And given your stats, probably another 10 or 20 lbs of what I would call “all-over mass”.

I’m 6’2, weigh 235, and am trying damn hard to look like Prof. X (size wise that is, I don’t think I can work out the amount of melanin in my skin cells THAT much), and for the past couple years I’ve been on here, I’ve been doing a damn good job at it.

[quote]Professor X wrote:
kylec72 wrote:
Professor X wrote:
When posts like this come up…it should be a requirement to post pics of the body part you are recommending exercises for…so we can see how well that worked for you.

I see everything from cleans to rack pulls handed out but haven’t seen that many people on the board with HUGE traps as a result of this.

Ha, you’re kidding I hope. How many people on the board can rack pull 8 plates per side for reps? Sure, shrugs will strictly emphasize the traps moreso than rack pulls, which will of course target other areas, but if you can deadlift or rack pull a significant amount of weight, while retracting your shoulders or shrugging backwards, for reps, your traps will grow.

The comment was made in jest, anyways.

I don’t deadlift. I also do NOT see people here who do deadlift with really large traps. Why the hell is it that so few people here have HUGE traps if these exercises work so damn well?

No, I’m not kidding at all. I want to see BIG people talking about HOW TO GET BIG. I do not want to see small people telling me what SHOULD work for big muscles.[/quote]

Traps aside, is there a reason you choose not to deadlift? Never found it effective?

Shrugs (done after Deadlift in the rack) packed on size for me, warm up to 1 or two top sets of 5-8 reps the did one back off set of around 15-25reps. I used the under / over grip for shrugs:- no need for straps AND hlped increase grip for DL. At the time my best shrug was around 310x5reps and best DL about 230x5reps in the 125 class.

[quote]hawaiilifterMike wrote:
anonym wrote:
hawaiilifterMike wrote:
zephead4747 wrote:

As someone who has really large traps without training them directly, I can guarentee you anyone like me, or not like me in that reguard who is handing out excercises is parroting advice or do not realize they have good genetics for that body part. my traps are light years ahead of every other bodypart on my body except maybe my thighs. TO balence them out I would probably have to gain about 70+ more pounds without adding any more trap size to look balenced.

Please post pics of said over-developed traps.
Thanks.

Them be some pretty big traps.

Since zephead4747 did not post a pic of his really large traps, I will post a pic of my little traps that I got from doing mainly bb shrugs. I will start to do rack pull more consistently to see if they explode!

[/quote]

I’m not proud of something that I didn’t really have to work for, I would rather have forearm genetics on that level. Yeah, I deadlifted, and cleaned my ass off for the past few years, It makes me look rediculous in a t-shirt, The people on here know I’m legit. I don’t have shit to prove to you. I’m not going to take a picture of my neck to make some fool on a forum happy.

[quote]therajraj wrote:

Traps aside, is there a reason you choose not to deadlift? Never found it effective?
[/quote]

Why do them? For my back? That grows just fine from everything else I do. For my traps? I have that on lock already. The only reason I could really see the use for them in my training is for hamstrings maybe (which I do curls for) or maybe to bring out that “Christmas tree” that you only see when people are really leaned down. I have long legs and deadlifts hurt my back. There are also too many alternatives to pretend like this exercise is a necessity.

[quote]zephead4747 wrote:
hawaiilifterMike wrote:
anonym wrote:
hawaiilifterMike wrote:
zephead4747 wrote:

As someone who has really large traps without training them directly, I can guarentee you anyone like me, or not like me in that reguard who is handing out excercises is parroting advice or do not realize they have good genetics for that body part. my traps are light years ahead of every other bodypart on my body except maybe my thighs. TO balence them out I would probably have to gain about 70+ more pounds without adding any more trap size to look balenced.

Please post pics of said over-developed traps.
Thanks.

Them be some pretty big traps.

Since zephead4747 did not post a pic of his really large traps, I will post a pic of my little traps that I got from doing mainly bb shrugs. I will start to do rack pull more consistently to see if they explode!

I’m not proud of something that I didn’t really have to work for, I would rather have forearm genetics on that level. Yeah, I deadlifted, and cleaned my ass off for the past few years, It makes me look rediculous in a t-shirt, The people on here know I’m legit. I don’t have shit to prove to you. I’m not going to take a picture of my neck to make some fool on a forum happy.[/quote]

Whatever floats your boat. Thanks anyway.

Power clean Traps baby!!! This is me about 6 months ago at 270, and they have only gotten bigger. Don’t knock 'em till you try 'em!

[quote]kylec72 wrote:
Professor X wrote:
When posts like this come up…it should be a requirement to post pics of the body part you are recommending exercises for…so we can see how well that worked for you.

I see everything from cleans to rack pulls handed out but haven’t seen that many people on the board with HUGE traps as a result of this.

Ha, you’re kidding I hope. How many people on the board can rack pull 8 plates per side for reps? Sure, shrugs will strictly emphasize the traps more so than rack pulls, which will of course target other areas, but if you can deadlift or rack pull a significant amount of weight, while retracting your shoulders or shrugging backwards, for reps, your traps will grow.

The comment was made in jest, anyways.

EDIT: I never said I have big traps, nor did I say I can rack pull 8 plates per side for reps. I don’t need to be able to do it to know it will create big traps, like I don’t need to shrug similar or more weight to know it will create big traps or repping 4 plates per side on bench will create large pecs.[/quote]

I’m not trying to pick on you but you must not have any clue how silly you sound after adding in that EDIT. Do you understand how heavy a 765 rack pull is? First of all the overwhelmingly large portion of bodybuilders will never reach that sort of strength. Second of all, that amount of strength on that particular lift is definitely not needed to build the biggest traps possible. Your advice is so close to sounding like “do weighted chin ups to build big biceps” it’s not even funny.

OP try shrugging from various angles with various grip positions from both the front and back with a barbell and smith machine. Recently I have been doing close grip (pinkies on the inside of the knurling on a standard bar) from the front while slightly leaning forward and shoulder width grip from behind on the smith machine. If I ever do neutral grip work I use the HS machine.

[quote]BONEZ217 wrote:
kylec72 wrote:
Professor X wrote:
When posts like this come up…it should be a requirement to post pics of the body part you are recommending exercises for…so we can see how well that worked for you.

I see everything from cleans to rack pulls handed out but haven’t seen that many people on the board with HUGE traps as a result of this.

Ha, you’re kidding I hope. How many people on the board can rack pull 8 plates per side for reps? Sure, shrugs will strictly emphasize the traps more so than rack pulls, which will of course target other areas, but if you can deadlift or rack pull a significant amount of weight, while retracting your shoulders or shrugging backwards, for reps, your traps will grow.

The comment was made in jest, anyways.

EDIT: I never said I have big traps, nor did I say I can rack pull 8 plates per side for reps. I don’t need to be able to do it to know it will create big traps, like I don’t need to shrug similar or more weight to know it will create big traps or repping 4 plates per side on bench will create large pecs.

I’m not trying to pick on you but you must not have any clue how silly you sound after adding in that EDIT. Do you understand how heavy a 765 rack pull is? First of all the overwhelmingly large portion of bodybuilders will never reach that sort of strength. Second of all, that amount of strength on that particular lift is definitely not needed to build the biggest traps possible. Your advice is so close to sounding like “do weighted chin ups to build big biceps” it’s not even funny.

OP try shrugging from various angles with various grip positions from both the front and back with a barbell and smith machine. Recently I have been doing close grip (pinkies on the inside of the knurling on a standard bar) from the front while slightly leaning forward and shoulder width grip from behind on the smith machine. If I ever do neutral grip work I use the HS machine. [/quote]

…which is why all of the advice floating around from people who were never big to begin with is nothing but confusing and wasteful to any newb reading it.

For those who still don’t get it, if you haven’t built shit, quit giving advice on how to build big muscles. Handing out quotes that you barely understand yourself is retarded and not needed here.

[quote]Professor X wrote:

…which is why all of the advice floating around from people who were never big to begin with is nothing but confusing and wasteful to any newb reading it.

For those who still don’t get it, if you haven’t built shit, quit giving advice on how to build big muscles. Handing out quotes that you barely understand yourself is retarded and not needed here.[/quote]

Would this not then preclude 99% of the people from posting in the Bodybuilding forum? It would have less posting rate than T-Cell Alpha.

[quote]hawaiilifterMike wrote:
Professor X wrote:

…which is why all of the advice floating around from people who were never big to begin with is nothing but confusing and wasteful to any newb reading it.

For those who still don’t get it, if you haven’t built shit, quit giving advice on how to build big muscles. Handing out quotes that you barely understand yourself is retarded and not needed here.

Would this not then preclude 99% of the people from posting in the Bodybuilding forum? It would have less posting rate than T-Cell Alpha.
[/quote]

Not speaking for the big guy but it is certainly not the case the 99% of posts in the BB forum are comprised of inappropriate quotations and half baked theory. Intelligent questions and personal accounts of sucess help everyone, regardless of development level. Telling someone to rack pull 765 for reps to get bigger traps is essentially useless advice, however (unless it’s coming from someone who has built his traps up by routinely rack pulling 765 :wink: ).

Prescribing anything other than Shrugs for direct trap development is like recommending Chins for biceps development. Sure, the bis will grow from Chins, but Curls will do it more directly and effectively.

The shortest distance between two points is…

[quote]Iron Dwarf wrote:

The shortest distance between two points is… [/quote]

TBT, duh!

[quote]BONEZ217 wrote:
kylec72 wrote:
Professor X wrote:
When posts like this come up…it should be a requirement to post pics of the body part you are recommending exercises for…so we can see how well that worked for you.

I see everything from cleans to rack pulls handed out but haven’t seen that many people on the board with HUGE traps as a result of this.

Ha, you’re kidding I hope. How many people on the board can rack pull 8 plates per side for reps? Sure, shrugs will strictly emphasize the traps more so than rack pulls, which will of course target other areas, but if you can deadlift or rack pull a significant amount of weight, while retracting your shoulders or shrugging backwards, for reps, your traps will grow.

The comment was made in jest, anyways.

EDIT: I never said I have big traps, nor did I say I can rack pull 8 plates per side for reps. I don’t need to be able to do it to know it will create big traps, like I don’t need to shrug similar or more weight to know it will create big traps or repping 4 plates per side on bench will create large pecs.

I’m not trying to pick on you but you must not have any clue how silly you sound after adding in that EDIT. Do you understand how heavy a 765 rack pull is? First of all the overwhelmingly large portion of bodybuilders will never reach that sort of strength. Second of all, that amount of strength on that particular lift is definitely not needed to build the biggest traps possible. Your advice is so close to sounding like “do weighted chin ups to build big biceps” it’s not even funny.
[/quote]

Holy crap! I’ve stated twice already how the original comment was made in jest–to act in a funny or teasing way. More of the latter, so of course it sounds silly. My biggest mistake was not adding a wink or lol or some sort of intentional comedic gesture at the end to make this clear.

[quote]Professor X wrote:
BONEZ217 wrote:
kylec72 wrote:
Professor X wrote:
When posts like this come up…it should be a requirement to post pics of the body part you are recommending exercises for…so we can see how well that worked for you.

I see everything from cleans to rack pulls handed out but haven’t seen that many people on the board with HUGE traps as a result of this.

Ha, you’re kidding I hope. How many people on the board can rack pull 8 plates per side for reps? Sure, shrugs will strictly emphasize the traps more so than rack pulls, which will of course target other areas, but if you can deadlift or rack pull a significant amount of weight, while retracting your shoulders or shrugging backwards, for reps, your traps will grow.

The comment was made in jest, anyways.

EDIT: I never said I have big traps, nor did I say I can rack pull 8 plates per side for reps. I don’t need to be able to do it to know it will create big traps, like I don’t need to shrug similar or more weight to know it will create big traps or repping 4 plates per side on bench will create large pecs.

I’m not trying to pick on you but you must not have any clue how silly you sound after adding in that EDIT. Do you understand how heavy a 765 rack pull is? First of all the overwhelmingly large portion of bodybuilders will never reach that sort of strength. Second of all, that amount of strength on that particular lift is definitely not needed to build the biggest traps possible. Your advice is so close to sounding like “do weighted chin ups to build big biceps” it’s not even funny.

OP try shrugging from various angles with various grip positions from both the front and back with a barbell and smith machine. Recently I have been doing close grip (pinkies on the inside of the knurling on a standard bar) from the front while slightly leaning forward and shoulder width grip from behind on the smith machine. If I ever do neutral grip work I use the HS machine.

…which is why all of the advice floating around from people who were never big to begin with is nothing but confusing and wasteful to any newb reading it.

For those who still don’t get it, if you haven’t built shit, quit giving advice on how to build big muscles. Handing out quotes that you barely understand yourself is retarded and not needed here.[/quote]

The quote was only brought upon from your request “to see BIG people talking about HOW TO GET BIG” and due to your initial resistance towards rack pulls potentially developing larger traps. End of story.

I don’t often give advice in places where inappropriate, such as this topic, because I agree most of the advice should be given out by the biggest lifters on this forum, like yourself, who have experience and results to demonstrate the effectiveness of said advice.

My original comment was to kind of poke fun in line with Tribulus’ comment - “Your profile says you’ve been training for 22 years, are 6’2 and 195. At what point did you discover that your traps were weak?” My mistake for not making this more clear.

[quote]Professor X wrote:
BONEZ217 wrote:
kylec72 wrote:
Professor X wrote:
When posts like this come up…it should be a requirement to post pics of the body part you are recommending exercises for…so we can see how well that worked for you.

I see everything from cleans to rack pulls handed out but haven’t seen that many people on the board with HUGE traps as a result of this.

Ha, you’re kidding I hope. How many people on the board can rack pull 8 plates per side for reps? Sure, shrugs will strictly emphasize the traps more so than rack pulls, which will of course target other areas, but if you can deadlift or rack pull a significant amount of weight, while retracting your shoulders or shrugging backwards, for reps, your traps will grow.

The comment was made in jest, anyways.

EDIT: I never said I have big traps, nor did I say I can rack pull 8 plates per side for reps. I don’t need to be able to do it to know it will create big traps, like I don’t need to shrug similar or more weight to know it will create big traps or repping 4 plates per side on bench will create large pecs.

I’m not trying to pick on you but you must not have any clue how silly you sound after adding in that EDIT. Do you understand how heavy a 765 rack pull is? First of all the overwhelmingly large portion of bodybuilders will never reach that sort of strength. Second of all, that amount of strength on that particular lift is definitely not needed to build the biggest traps possible. Your advice is so close to sounding like “do weighted chin ups to build big biceps” it’s not even funny.

OP try shrugging from various angles with various grip positions from both the front and back with a barbell and smith machine. Recently I have been doing close grip (pinkies on the inside of the knurling on a standard bar) from the front while slightly leaning forward and shoulder width grip from behind on the smith machine. If I ever do neutral grip work I use the HS machine.

…which is why all of the advice floating around from people who were never big to begin with is nothing but confusing and wasteful to any newb reading it.

For those who still don’t get it, if you haven’t built shit, quit giving advice on how to build big muscles. Handing out quotes that you barely understand yourself is retarded and not needed here.[/quote]

I dont understand what’s so bad about quoting someone like Dante, plus what’s so hard to understand about the quote that was posted? The reason it makes sense to do deadlifts to get bigger traps is because you can overload the muscle. Saying not to do deadift and rack pull variants is like saying dont do close grip bench for tris because it works your delts and chest to a degree and totally forget about doing squats for quad development because those pesky hamstrings and glutes take some of the load. Instead of bitching at ppl and wanting to be the top dog why not actually give some of you own advice.

That being said, i find there are more then one way to skin a cat, when it comes to traps what has worked for me has been deadlifts, rack pulls, shrugs and when i did them hang cleans (but i took the cleans out long ago due to chance of injury)

Deadlifts and rack pulls work the muscle when its statically keeping the back tight.
Shrugs and cleans work the muscle dynamically.
A lot of ppl say they saw the best development when they were doing deadlifts or rack pulls with a shrug at the top, this seems like a great option because you are isometrically working the muscle at first then you’re preforming an isotonic contraction on the muscle when you shrug.

[quote]UAphenix wrote:

I dont understand what’s so bad about quoting someone like Dante, plus what’s so hard to understand about the quote that was posted? The reason it makes sense to do deadlifts to get bigger traps is because you can overload the muscle. [/quote]

What? Gee, I can “overload the muscle” just fine with shrugs. Why would I work INDIRECTLY to train traps when I can train them DIRECTLY? No one is saying don’t do deadlifts…but why would ANYONE do deadlifts strictly for traps? That doesn’t even make sense. That makes just as much sense as the idiots telling everyone to do chin ups for all of their biceps work. The rest was explained by Bone.

[quote]
That being said, i find there are more then one way to skin a cat, when it comes to traps what has worked for me has been deadlifts, rack pulls, shrugs and when i did them hang cleans (but i took the cleans out long ago due to chance of injury)[/quote]

Great, let’s see a pic of those big traps!

[quote]UAphenix wrote:

I dont understand what’s so bad about quoting someone like Dante, plus what’s so hard to understand about the quote that was posted? The reason it makes sense to do deadlifts to get bigger traps is because you can overload the muscle. Saying not to do deadift and rack pull variants is like saying dont do close grip bench for tris because it works your delts and chest to a degree and totally forget about doing squats for quad development because those pesky hamstrings and glutes take some of the load. Instead of bitching at ppl and wanting to be the top dog why not actually give some of you own advice.

That being said, i find there are more then one way to skin a cat, when it comes to traps what has worked for me has been deadlifts, rack pulls, shrugs and when i did them hang cleans (but i took the cleans out long ago due to chance of injury)

Deadlifts and rack pulls work the muscle when its statically keeping the back tight.
Shrugs and cleans work the muscle dynamically.
A lot of ppl say they saw the best development when they were doing deadlifts or rack pulls with a shrug at the top, this seems like a great option because you are isometrically working the muscle at first then you’re preforming an isotonic contraction on the muscle when you shrug.
[/quote]

Let me see if I can explain their point in a way you can understand:

I weigh 40lbs more than you, and could split clean & press you over my head. I’m pretty sure I could shrug your body weight with one arm.

Should I really listen to your advice on getting swole, without pictures of you looking like mightystu, bonez, or that bitwell(sp) guy, when you weigh less than my warmup weights on deadlifts?