Overview

This is technically a traps, rhomboids and other supporting musculature section, colloquially known as ‘back thickness’.

The traps has three heads known as the upper, middle and lower heads, in descending order of size.

The upper traps are involved in scapula elevation and neck extension. The middle traps are involved in scapula retraction. The lower traps are involved in scapula depression.

The rhomboid major (scapula retraction and depression) and rhomboid minor (scapula retraction and elevation) assist with this as well.

The reality is back training is an interconnected puzzle. Traps, lats and spinal erectors (classified under core for our purposes) have to be considered in unison. There will be movements and exercises here that works our lats and vice versa.

Prescription

Minimalist

An absolute minimalist approach means 1 movement ‘slot’.

In this case if we can only 1 motor pattern, there’s a clear winner:

• Trap-dominant hinge

Moderate

If we have more resources to expend on the muscle group, it is of course the preferred approach.

In this case the movement slots would look like this:

• Chest-supported row
• Explosive pull

Maximalist

This is the approach if we are throwing everything at the kitchen sink. Use sparingly either if you are in a plateau or looking for a specialisation phase.

Here the movement slots might look like this:

• Trap-dominant hinge
• Chest-supported row
• Explosive pull
• Shrug (shortened biased)

Standout exercises

Trap-dominant hinge movement

Stiff Leg Deadlift

• If you’re taking a minimalist 1 exercise approach, this is arguably the best all-rounder high fatigue high stimulus exercise. The rack pull is probably a more targeted trap exercise, but the SLDL will work the entire back more with the brunt of it still being traps.

Rack Pull

• This falls in the same category but with fairly different utility. While this could potentially work as one variation in a minimalist approach, it really shines in a back specialisation type split. The rack pull maximally overloads the traps in the lengthened position while still keeping a bit more control than the explosive movements.

Chest-supported row movement

DB Seal Row and variations

• The ideal here is if you have a seal row bench to get that fully horizontal angle, or if you can jerry rig the same setup with a regular bench and jump boxes. Barring that a decline bench is of course still a good option. The dumbbells allow free movement to maximally target the rhomboids, and also mechanical drop sets to focus on the rear delts or lats.

Chest Supported T-bar Machine

• Not every gym is going to have this machine, but if you do this is another rhomboid and trap blaster. The trade off for the free bar path of the dumbbells is the added stability and overload potential.

Meadows Row

• Popularised by the late great John Meadows, this is essentially a 1-arm barbell landmine row where you are gripping the end of the bar. Yes, this is not chest-supported but it’s still in this section. Sometimes a chest-supported variation may be uncomfortable for an individual, or this can be cycled in simply for variation. This does require straps or rubber grips in order to grip the edge of the bar.

Explosive pull movement

Traps are generally a beefy muscle group that needs to be hit with a lot of force or a lot of load, or both.

1-arm DB Upright Row

• The straight bar upright row gets a lot of flak and honestly there is likely some truth in that. For many individuals this will inadvertently take you beyond your active ROM of shoulder internal rotation.
• On the other hand a unilateral variation with a free weight such as a dumbbell removes this issue. The addition of some hip drive to get past the awkward sticking point in the eccentric makes this an excellent option.
• Remember to grip the dumbbell tightly the whole way; by engaging your forearms you’ll activate your entire chain and avoid taking the load out of your active shoulder ROM.

Snatch Grip Barbell High Pull

• Use a bit of momentum here to get that balance of enough load to provide an overloaded eccentric while not entirely losing the mind muscle connection.

Power Shrug

• Care needs to be taken with these, but for intermediate and advanced lifters this is one of the best isolated trap exercises.
• I consider this superior to the strict barbell shrug; there’s definitely room for strict shrugs but the below options would be better for that purpose.
• Just note you probably don’t want to pair these with rack pulls in the same split, we want to have small changes in lines of force for joint health and recovery purposes.

Shrug (shortened biased) movement

Cable Shrug

• Vastly underrated, a standing cable shrug with a full contraction and 2 second hold in the shortened position annihilates the mid traps.

DB Kelso Shrug

• This is best done on a steep decline bench, but free standing DB shrugs are fine if you don’t have the equipment.

Execution

With hinges, the cliche of ‘grip and rip’ isn’t too far off for a trap-dominant hinge (as opposed to a hamstring-dominant hinge).

With rows, whether it’s chest-supported or not, the key is to keep the stack and press your chest firmly on the bench. So think of breathing in and expanding your rib cage with each eccentric, and breathing out on each concentric.

For some trap dominant rows think of driving the clavicle up and then back.

With shrugs, the crucial point here is to shrug up and back with the shoulder, not just up. The scapula elevation plus retraction is key.

Programming

Reps, tempo, sets, rest times

There’s a few unique pointers with trap training.

On occasion the rep ranges for the Stiff Leg Deadlift might even go down to 3-10 reps as opposed to our usual 5-15. We wouldn’t do this for Rack Pulls however.

The hinge and especially explosive pull movements should go at a faster tempo than the traditional 3 count eccentrics.

The back in general is a very resilient muscle so you may choose to start them off at 1 set higher than other muscles if it’s your priority. So starting at 3 sets instead of 2 if you’re intermediate, or 2 sets instead of 1 if you’re advanced.

Intensifiers and volume

Hinge movements do not go well with intensifiers so progression should be done with straight sets only.

Rowing movements is another story entirely. Mechanical drop sets suit them perfectly; start with a full ROM row, to a partial ROM row, to a scapula only row.

Sequence

The sequence here doesn’t need to follow the standard shortened biased first, mid-range biased second, lengthened biased third rule.

Generally it makes sense to go a traditional heavy to light approach with traps, with hinges first, rows second, explosive pull third, ending with shrugs.