Workouts for Traps: Best Exercises to Build Stronger Traps

Workouts for traps are important for building a strong set of upper back muscles and rear delts. Traps play a vital role in your posture and upper body strength.

To understand workouts for traps, it’s important to know what the muscle group is and how it helps you on a daily basis.

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What are trap muscles?

Trap muscles (Photo via Scott Webb/Unsplash)

The trap muscles are also known as trapezius muscles. These are large, triangular-shaped muscles that extend from the base of the skull as it goes into the shoulders and mid-back.

The muscle group is made up of three parts:

1. Upper traps
2. Middle traps
3. Lower traps

The upper traps help with shoulder shrugging, the middle traps help with shoulder stabilization, and the lower traps assist with retracting the shoulder blades. You need all three parts to work together to ensure shoulder stability along with proper arm movements and good posture.

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Workouts for traps to add to your workout routine

Exercises for shoulders (Photo via GMB Fitness/Unsplash)

The following are some of the upper trap, middle trap, and lower trap exercises that you can add to your workout:

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Barbell shrugs

• Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart
• Hold a barbell near your thighs
• Raise your shoulders towards your ears
• Hold the position for a second or two before lowering them
• Add weights to the barbell to increase the resistance
• You can do the same exercise with dumbbells as well

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Upright rows

• Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart
• Hold a barbell near your thighs
• Lift the barbell towards your chin by keeping your elbows higher than your hands
• You can add weights if you want to increase the resistance
• You can do the same exercise using dumbbells or cables

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Cable face pulls

• Attach a rope to the cable pulley machine
• Adjust the anchor to your forehead height
• Hold the rope handles and move backwards
• Pull the rope handle towards your face while keeping your elbows upwards and outwards

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Rear delt flyes

• Hold a pair of dumbbell and sit on a bench
• Bend forward from your hips and keep the dumbbells under your thighs
• Engage your rear delts and open your arms to do a reverse fly
• Slowly lower the dumbbells to control the negative

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Prone Y raise

• Set a bench to an incline position
• Lie on the bench face down while holding a dumbbell in each hand
• Keeping your arms and back straight, raise the dumbbells to the side
• It’s better to start with lower weights and understand the form before moving to heavier weights

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Workouts for traps: Traps workout at home

Trap workouts for home (Photo via LOGAN WEAVER | @LGNWVR/Unsplash)

If you’re not doing workouts for traps at the gym, here are some exercises that you can add to your home workout routine:

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Scapular retractions

• You’ll need a resistance band for this exercise
• Put the resistance band around your back
• Stand straight with your feet shoulder-width apart
• Squeeze your shoulder blades together as you retract your shoulder blades

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Face pulls

• Put the resistance band in a loop on a door or wall
• Hold each end of the band
• Facing the fall or door, pull the band towards your face while keeping your elbows high

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Reverse flyes

• Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart
• Put one side of the resistance band under your feet
• Hold the two ends with each hand and bend forward
• Move your arms backwards until your feel the tension on the bands and in your rear delts

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Workouts for traps: Benefits of strong traps

As mentioned, the reason behind doing workouts for traps is to build a stronger set of muscles. Here are some of the benefits of having strong traps:

• Improvement in posture
• Relief from shoulder and neck pain
• Increased upper body strength
• Reduced risk of injury
• Improvement in athletic performance

It should be noted that traps are a smaller muscle group, and hence, should be trained with similar care. It's best to start with a lighter weight to understand the form, perfect it, and then move to a higher weight.

This will protect you from injuries and ensure that your muscles become stronger with time.