Trap workout: shrugs and the exercises for the upper, middle and lower traps

The trapezius, or traps, is the large diamond-shaped muscle of the upper back. Its upper part runs from the base of your skull and your neck out to your shoulders, its middle part across your shoulder blades, and its lower part down toward the middle of your back. The upper part lifts your shoulders, the middle part pulls your shoulder blades together, and the lower part pulls them down. A shrug mainly trains the first job; for the other two, the studies below found other exercises at the top.

This page covers the shrug, the exercises for the middle and lower parts, where the deadlift fits, a sample workout, and the sets. The shoulder day around it is on the shoulder workout.

Shrugs, with dumbbells or a barbell

1. Stand tall with a dumbbell in each hand at your sides, palms facing you, or a barbell in front of your thighs, hands just outside your hips.
2. Brace, arms long and straight. They're hooks; the elbows don't bend.
3. Lift your shoulders straight up toward your ears, as high as they go.
4. Hold for a second at the top.
5. Lower them all the way down under control, letting the weight stretch them. That's one rep.

In 30 healthy people doing ten exercises for the trapezius and the muscle along the side of the ribs, a one-arm shrug produced the most upper-trap activity.¹ A small change adds more. In 23 healthy participants, a shrug with the arms raised about 30 degrees out to the sides produced more upper- and lower-trap activity than a standard shrug with the arms down, and more middle-trap activity too.² Neither study measured growth.

Dumbbells or a barbell? No study has compared them head to head, as dumbbell vs barbell notes. Dumbbells hang at your sides and let you shrug one arm at a time; a barbell sits in front and lets you load more. Use whichever you can add weight to.

The middle and lower traps

The same study of 30 people found different exercises at the top for the other two parts.¹ Both are done lying face down on a bench or an incline bench, with light dumbbells:

• Middle traps: a reverse fly with the thumbs up. Arms hanging down, raise them out to the sides to shoulder height, turning your thumbs toward the ceiling. Arms raised overhead in a Y (below) worked the middle traps about as much.
• Lower traps: the Y raise. Raise your arms overhead and out at an angle, in line with the lower traps, thumbs up. It produced the most lower-trap activity of the ten.

Rows count too. In 17 women aged 24 to 55, the one-arm row worked the lower traps more than the upper traps at both a light and a hard effort, and the middle traps more than the upper too.³ So the rows on the back workout already train the middle and lower traps, and face pulls draw the shoulder blades back too; the raises above add to them.

The upright row and the deadlift

• The upright row. In 16 weight-trained men, shoulder and trapezius activity rose as the grip got wider.⁴ The upright row covers how wide and how high to pull.
• The deadlift. In 13 college football players deadlifting a 12-rep max, upper-trap activity was greater near the top of the lift, and middle-trap activity greater near the bottom.⁵ So the deadlift works the traps along the way, measured as activity, not growth. The form is on deadlift form.

A sample trap workout

Add these to a back or shoulder day, after the main lift, rather than as a day of their own:

At home, the same list works with dumbbells or a band: shrugs holding the band under your feet, rows with the band anchored in a door, and the raises lying face down on the floor with no weight or very light ones.

The common faults, and a fix for each

• Rolling your shoulders. Straight up and straight down. Rolling them in circles isn't part of the movement.
• Bending the elbows. Your arms only hold the weight. If they're pulling, it's too heavy.
• Half reps. All the way up toward your ears and all the way down. A weight too heavy to move through that range is too heavy.
• Pushing your head forward. Keep your chin level and your neck long as you shrug.
• Swinging on the raises. Use light dumbbells and keep your chest on the bench the whole set.
• Lifting through something that hurts. Sore muscles the next day are normal; a sharp or lasting hurt in the neck or shoulder isn't. Stop, and see a doctor or a physical therapist.

Sets, reps and how often

• Two or three sets of each, stopping one or two reps short. (How to judge reps left.) The American College of Sports Medicine's 2026 position stand, which covers healthy adults, advises at least two sets per exercise.⁶
• Count your rows and deadlifts. The same stand found muscle growth was enhanced by ten or more sets per muscle group a week, and the pulls you already do count toward the traps.
• Twice a week is plenty to start, on the days you train your back or shoulders. No trial that measured trap growth from shrugs turned up in a PubMed search for this page, so these sets are practice guidance, not a tested dose.
• Add weight in small steps. When the top of the rep range comes easy with a full lift and a pause, go up by the smallest jump you have. (Progressive overload covers the options.)

If you'd rather not plan it alone

Traps are one region; how much direct work they need depends on how much pulling your week already holds. Coaching is the version where your workouts are built around the days you actually have, and a weekly call looks at the week you just had and rebuilds the next one. Coaching to build muscle explains how that works, and here's how to apply. Otherwise: at your next back or shoulder session, add three sets of 12 shrugs with a one-second hold at the top, and write down the weight.