Awesome Trap Exercise

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JakeLongSnake

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Nov 5, 2017
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Have any of you tried rack pulls above the knee i saw a vid by alphadestiny a few days ago about them and decided to try it yesterday and my yoke has never been this sore in my life i cant even shrug my shoulders without hurting like hell even powercleans never make me feel like this if you havent done these yet go heavy as fuck and try it i promise you you will fall in love with these not just from the sheer beatdown but its immensely satisfying for ones ego
 
Yeah heavy rack pulls are great. What else do you do for traps? For me it was always one of the more difficult bodyparts to get growing.
 
I've had great trap genetics my entire life. They get big with minimal effort.

Rack pulls work, and I've done a lot of crazy heavy rack pulling. Have ripped the flesh off of my palm twice.

I don't like doing BB shrugs because (1) grip fails before muscles [I use a mixed grip to rack pull] and (2) the bar always ends up curved. I like doing trap bar shrugs over dumbbells, and I will do shrugs on the Smith machine as well. I find it beneficial to do them with the bar both in front and beyond you (though I suppose it's kinda gross to have your ads all over the bar).
 
My gym has this iso-lateral low row machine I believe it's called. Depending how high I put the seat it really hits my traps instead of lats. Also piss poor form for lateral raises hits traps well lol. Or flip train bearings like my old job
 
Your grip will damn near always fail first, hence straps.

Traps are the one muscle I don't hit anymore, been about two years because they just grow on their own and overpower other stuff. Personally I've found heavy and high rep worked best for me. Sets on the smith machine where you can lean slightly forward of 495x20 or 405x30-40 with drops afterwards always got them nice and toasty
 
CFC said:
Yeah heavy rack pulls are great. What else do you do for traps? For me it was always one of the more difficult bodyparts to get growing.
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My main trap development comes from the olympic lifts though i like to do barbell high pulls to nipple level and farmers walks too i also get some trap action from some of the advanced calisthenics i do
 
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Swim15 said:
Your grip will damn near always fail first, hence straps.

Traps are the one muscle I don't hit anymore, been about two years because they just grow on their own and overpower other stuff. Personally I've found heavy and high rep worked best for me. Sets on the smith machine where you can lean slightly forward of 495x20 or 405x30-40 with drops afterwards always got them nice and toasty
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Is it true that hypertrophy specific peds blow up your traps to kazmaier level cause ive heard that a lot and its one of the things that make me want to do a cycle
 
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Yeah farmer's walks are another one of my faves.

Unlike you lucky guys, my traps never responded much to AAS. Growth was pretty poor for years until I started hitting them daily with relatively light weights. I think part of the problem is that my back is so naturally wide (the bone structure), there's a lot of space to fill.
 
I have such tiny hands that I cannot even use straps. I will pull significantly less if I use them. It's similar to how I can pull (or ppush the most on the thinnest BBs, but my training partners all hate thin ones. I just put alcohol on my hands first and then a ton of chalk. For a while I would do mixed grip shrugs and alternate between sets.
 
JakeLongSnake said:
Is it true that hypertrophy specific peds blow up your traps to kazmaier level cause ive heard that a lot and its one of the things that make me want to do a cycle
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What do you mean by hypertrophy specific PEDs?
 
JakeLongSnake said:
Swim15 said:
What do you mean by hypertrophy specific PEDs?
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Roids that are intended to make your muscles bigger im not well versed in this subject so i dont know what to call them
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First, please don't say roids as it makes you sound uneducated, just fair warning. Second, that would be all of them. There are no hypertrophy specific steroids
 
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Swim15 said:
First, please don't say roids as it makes you sound uneducated, just fair warning. Second, that would be all of them. There are no hypertrophy specific steroids
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Maybe he means instead of the ones used more often for bodybuilding Vs the ones typically used by power lifters such as halo, the no ester compounds, cheque drops, etc?
 
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Serotonin101 said:
Maybe he means instead of the ones used more often for bodybuilding Vs the ones typically used by power lifters such as halo, the no ester compounds, cheque drops, etc?
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Yeah potentially but if you give someone who has never touched gear any of those drugs, it's going to cause hypertrophy. At first I was thinking he was talking about AAS vs EPO or something
 
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RedLeader said:
I have such tiny hands that I cannot even use straps. I will pull significantly less if I use them. It's similar to how I can pull (or ppush the most on the thinnest BBs, but my training partners all hate thin ones. I just put alcohol on my hands first and then a ton of chalk. For a while I would do mixed grip shrugs and alternate between sets.
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EZ or Cambered bars can also help, as long as they have enough room for plates.
 
CFC said:
EZ or Cambered bars can also help, as long as they have enough room for plates.
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Ya, the gyms I use now have fairly standard equipment. The one just got a trap bar, so that's about as exotic as it gets. They don't even have PLing stations. You're DLing behind the squat rack on normal gym floor and such.

There is a PLing gym down the road from my work and once I move up close to my work (3-6 months from now) I will join it. It will have better equipment and I think a more hardcore enviorment will have a positive psychological effect on my training.
 
Are overhead dB flies good for isolating the traps? Everything I read says it’s great for shoulders but I really feel it in the traps. Narrowing the grip on my hang cleans just a bit definitely helps as well. I thought I made up the overhead flies... until I googled it lol
 
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