HOW TO BUILD BIGGER TRAP MUSCLES

3,465 views · Published 20 July 2018 · 2:37 · Indexed 23 September 2026

Channel: Ron Williams Champion · 2018 · Howto & Style

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If you want your trapezius muscles to grow listen up!

https://www.championlife.co/

This is a muscle group that may not get worked as much, but it can make you look much bigger. 

Thanks and God Bless,

Ron Williams 

https://ironchestmaster.com/









Shrug better and fix your front raises.

If you want total trap development, the type that makes you hearing impaired, then heavy deadlifts alone aren't going to cut it. And neither will ultra-heavy shrugs that involve movement akin to a chicken dance.

You need time under tension. Dumbbell shrugs with a 3-5 second hold at the top – these are money. Contract the traps as hard as possible at the top of the shrug. Do 4 sets of 10-12 reps.


The shrug doesn't have a very long range of motion. So people who shrug too heavy don't spend enough time putting the traps under a significant amount of tension. When you hold the top in that 3-5 second range...

You have to lighten the load quite a bit.
You extend the time under tension and you can distribute more tension onto the traps.
You actually build traps.
My other go-to is the front raise using a 25 or 35 pound plate for ultra-high reps, usually between 50-100. This will absolutely scorch the traps, but you need to take the plate all the way over your head to really get the traps to kick in hard. None of that stopping in front of your face stuff.

You'll also find out very quickly that the lateral delts do in fact work very hard with these, and will probably be quite sore as well. Big traps and big shoulders? That's a winning combo. – Paul Carter

Lee Boyce – Strength Coach and Performance Expert
Olympic lifts and their variations.

That doesn't mean you have to go full bore and compete. It doesn't even mean you need to learn and perfect every single variation of the lifts. But adding a few athletic barbell movements into your program will light up the fast twitch fibers of the traps. Instead of only relying on shrug variations, use the following explosive exercises as staples for trap development:

The truth is, Olympic lifters' physiques speak volumes, especially where trap development is concerned. It makes sense to take a page out of their book and start performing lifts with a bit of an explosive edge rather than the slow, high TUT method you'd use with shrugs.

All of these movements should be focused on lower rep ranges – 5 or under. Feel free to up the volume by adding sets to perform a high number of loaded reps, cumulatively speaking. In this case, 8 sets of 3 is better than 3 sets of 8, and will probably be a better resistance against injury and keep the nervous system sharper for the duration of your workout. – Lee Boyce

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