Effective Techniques for Training Traps

You're going to have to have minimum range of motion, and all the range of motion actually comes from all the muscles that aren't working, like your hips and your calves. You know how to do that, right? That's how not to train traps. Here's how to actually train traps. Folks, the word traps has, I believe, five letters, if memory serves, but I bought three extra letters with me today, D-L-B. The one and only, holy shit. I don't even train traps. But she does do that. Today, I will. First time ever. Folks, a lot of people train traps wrong, and we have a lot of awesome tips for you to train traps more correctly. If you want bigger traps, which is going to make you more of a man and more of a woman at the same time, figure that out. Three, two, one, join in for our traps video. All right, folks. So first, let's talk about what the traps are and what they do. Good news. There are three parts of the trap, ma'am. so formal we got lower traps we got mid traps and we have these upper traps here now the awesome thing about the mid and lower traps because you can think oh snap like i had all i work to do i got to train all kinds of traps there's three parts it's like a task i'm back in middle school i don't know how to write it's a bad dream i thought there was only one part of the traps there's three i don't remember the three really good news your rowing motions in your back training are going to unequivocally train your lower and middle traps So totally fine that you almost never have to focus on them. There is a movement called the Kelso Shrug. You can Google that if you're interested in weird exercises that will train those for you. But really, rowing just kills them. So when we're talking about training traps and for the rest of this video, we're really talking about upper traps. There's also another reason why we only want to train upper traps specifically. Because when you're in a nightclub and some guy sizes you up all wrong, he's not going to fucking size your back of your back up. mid traps he can't see that shit it's in that little the cutoff you're wearing but he's gonna see these bad boys and if i'm in the club and i'm up to no good i'm like what's up man i thought they were looking at my delts though like so well delts are cool but here's the thing I'm glad you brought that up. Delts are dope, but delts are kind of like, no offense, like a fuckboy muscle. No. If you have big delts that are all rounded, people are like, okay, you're at the gym doing this. This is your channel, but I totally disagree. Okay, but that's okay. You can be wrong. And so I could agree with you, but we would both be wrong. And then they are sizing up your delts. Fine. Fine deal, B. They're sizing up your delts. The delts set the width, right? But if you have no traps, you don't have that man shit. I don't know how to do that. Well, that's because you're not a man. man yeah okay problem solved there so if you want to start becoming a man i just say just fucking get big traps which is to say after we record this video watch it back start training your traps a lot and then after about five days you'll be i'll be able to do most muscular finally oh yeah in the mirror okay and so the upper traps are what we care about and that brings me to my next point so point number two people think the upper traps have only one function but it turns out they have two major functions. Function one. Function one is to elevate the scapula. But there's also the scapular rotation component that the traps do. So, ma'am, if you could please turn around. So, if you just want to elevate really quick, yeah, okay, your traps are doing it. But there's also the levator scapulae muscles and all this other stuff that does all the pulling. The traps are also involved in tilting the scapulae up and back. So if you were to take your elbows and raise them like this, you guys see that shit? Do it again, DLB, real quick. Boom. You guys see the traps are literally, just a couple more reps, are literally moving. Thank God you're jacked and lean because this would be really difficult if you weren't. Those are trap functions. So through the magic of science and actually opening up an anatomy book, we are able to surmise that yes, shrugging is a big part of trap training, but it is by no means the only part of trap training. So now we're going to go through a couple of trap exercises and insights and ways of doing them that you may never have seen before, leaving your life empty and hopeless. until now. But salvation has come. Big traps are going to be yours mere days away, so write that note to your high school crush to finally give it to her, because when you show up with big traps, usually she just slams the door in your face. She'll swoon now. Yeah, or at least she'll slam the door and you'll trap into the door, and then you're into some legal trouble. But in any case, let's go train traps. You gotta show her. Dear God! What is it? Live by the sword, die by the sword? You make your name in fitness as a hardcore trainer? Deadlifter on the menu. I did powerlifting for a small stint of my life and I will never go back. Props to all powerlifters out there. I can't. It's... it's a weird phenomenon here. I think they need to check their floors. Less than cooperative. Deadlifts. Deadlifts for traps. Why are we mentioning deadlifts? Because when you do... deadlifts for your glutes, your hamstrings, depending on how you do them, your inner thighs, your lower back, your mid back, your upper back. It also involves living dog shit out of your traps. And so when you're doing deadlifts, you've already taken. taken such a huge chunk out of your trap training that you might not have to do a ton of trap training on top of that. However, if you don't do deadlift, then you're going to have to do trap training significantly more if you want that Tom Hardy in prison look. Do you know who Tom Hardy is? Yeah. Do you look at him and wonder why you married Rob Bailey instead? Because I do all the time. Why you married Rob Bailey? You didn't know about that? Ancient history, girl. Don't worry. He doesn't still text me all the time. How was the divorce? Every night. uh no divorce we just decided to go our separate ways technically we're still legally married oh so if he croaks before his due time i'm coming for half your shit so deadlifting for traps i mean you can deadlift kind of any way you want it's going to hit the traps one way or another so we're just going to demonstrate like really good deadlift technique conventional and there's a modified way to deadlift for traps we're going to save that for stiff legged deadlift which are also a big part of trap training so for regular deadlift you're just going to get the bar close To yourself, ideally, you would use VersaGrips or something like that, so the grip's not a factor. Tighten up your back so that your lower back is relatively straight. You can relax your arms. Arms are just hooks, and you just stand up and slowly, under control, touch gently and stand back up, and that's how you do a deadlift, and it's going to hit your traps. Now, really quick note before we have Ms. Daylin Bailey demonstrate these. Trap training, like almost every other muscle, benefits from volume. So if you want the biggest conversion for traps for the deadlift, higher reps and multiple sets are the way to go. Sets of 10 to 15, four or five sets. Will the rest of your body survive? Probably not. But if it can, you're going to have big-ass traps. Dope. You want to do a couple deadlifts real quick? Yeah. All right, have at it. You've got to get to it quick because it'll run away. So a really cool part about the deadlift is that it actually trains more or less the entire trap. When Dana's setting up and starting, you can see the vector of force. Is it okay if I touch you? Sorry, I already touched you and then I asked if it's okay. The vector of force. is actually going through the mid traps here. And when she comes up, you're going to see the vector of force is going through the upper trap. So the deadlift actually takes care of kind of all of your traps. Go ahead and hit some reps there. Boom. So it starts at the bottom, mid traps. And then at the top, it's upper traps, which is really dope. And which is why if you deadlift enough for a long enough history of time, you're just going to have to get bigger traps. There's no way around it. And you get bigger glutes. You get a stronger core. You get bigger hamstrings. And to be honest, that's how you grow up to become a man. Or a woman. Or a very strong, muscular woman who doesn't take no for an answer. Even when men say no and they really mean it. But you're like, no, I'm taking it. All right, you're good. I'm just describing your college days, aren't I? Shut up and take it. Luke, please, I have a family. No means no. Yeah, whatever. Whatever, kid. Next trap tip. You ready? Trap tips! That's like a cable, a late night cable access TV show. Trap tips with Dr. Mike. There you go. Trap has two meanings. One is the trapezius muscle, and the other is a house. inside of the inner city in which drugs are administered and sold to various residents of said city. Addictive drugs that are usually illegal, like crack and heroin and possibly powdered cocaine, but unlikely because it's expensive. The more you know. Do you guys love these facts? They hate them. Oh. All right. So stiff-legged deadlifts. You do them for big hamstrings. You do them for bigger glutes. Why do you do them? Hamstrings. There you go. But there is a way of doing stiff-legged deadlifts that extra hits your traps. And the thing is, stiff-legged deadlifts just hit your traps in general. A lot of it is because a stiff-legged deadlift is a very slow eccentric. And all of the reps in the set is just going to take a lot of time. And your traps have to be active so that your shoulders don't fall off. So it's going to fuck you up. However, this version of Stuffed Leg of Deadlifts, we're going to have... try is especially for the traps. It's going to hit your hamstrings for sure. It actually sets you up in a good hamstring position, but it's bonus round trap stuff. So let me demonstrate and then we'll have you do a little thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So typically what you would do is you would set up for a stiff leg of deadlift with a relaxed posture. And you would cock your hips back, big tummy, knees back, and come up. Normal. For the trap version of this, I never said it was going to be fun. What you're going to do is push your chest out a ton, push your tummy out a bunch, push your back out a ton, and also elevate your traps the entire time. So you're shrugging the whole time. Shrug up. Oh. And what you're going to find is as you do more reps, you're going to get so tired that over time you're going to start losing that position. If you start at the top with elevated scapulae and contracted traps. What that ends up doing is the entire stiff leg adductor motion screws up your hamstrings like it's supposed to, but also the entire time, try as you might, you're not going to be able to keep it there the whole time, you're slowly performing an eccentric contraction. that maximum force at the top pulling you apart is insanely muscle growth promoting it will fuck up your traps like you cannot believe and i mean cannot believe because it's not true i'm making all the shit up guys we ran out of content ideas i don't even have a phd so you're not even a doctor he's not even a doctor mike he's just mike god all this time the whole time all right you want to try it uh yeah yeah it looked really hard it's hard boom okay butt back chest up keep that shrug keep that shrug keep that shrug keep that shrug just don't go as far i guess correct And if they start slipping down, no big deal, but you want to resist as much as possible. And then slow on the way down, keep those traps up as if you're going to do another. And gently place it on the ground. Oh, my God. My neck is very tense now. Yeah. Never done them. You can't say that anymore. You just did. I've done them once now. Holy shit. That makes sense, yeah? Yeah. All right. Let's see what else I have in my bag of trips. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. I can do that stuff. I like this. Easy. We'll do a couple sets. Why am I bent over a bench? It could only be two things. The first thing it could be is my 780 pound dominatrix is mere minutes away and expects me to be ready for it. our weekly session. You just ground and pound. That's what she says. I know. I'm the ground in that case. The other reason is we're doing Y-raises. Now, Y-raises are a fine shoulder exercise. but they turn out to be an even better trap exercise, especially if done on an inclined bench. Now, you can do these standing. You can do these on cables. You can do them underwater. But above water, weight tends to feel more real, you know? Have you ever tried lifting stuff underwater? No. It makes you feel cool because you feel strong. I've seen it on Instagram. Yeah. It looks stupid. Wow. Okay, GLB. Let's just take the negative energy down a little bit. I thought we were all about positivity. We're influencers. Isn't that what you are? Nah. Oh, what are you then? DLB. Wow. Ladies and gentlemen, DLB. I'm just DLB. I'm just me, bro. Get off me. All right. So, why raises? You can have a couple different grips. You can do the thumbs up grip. I just prefer a regular conventional grip. And what you're going to want to do is come all the way up as high as your shoulders let you, pause for a split second, slowly control the eccentric. I feel my traps just fucking sitting here. Fuck this. I feel my traps. Just existing. Just existing, for sure. So, what you're going to do is come up and... your body's going to look like the letter Y real hard exercise to remember. So up and up. Oh God. I feel my traps already. And up. I'm tired. Do you want to take over? Sure. All right. All right. Remember the traps are involved in rotating the scapula and there's a lot of that going on in this exercise. Bonus, it's a halfway decent, not so great force curve delt exercise, but it will absolutely fry traps. Dana, way to get that top pause. That's awesome. Paws squeezing those traps really lets you connect to the muscle. And this is a great exercise to do before heavier trap training to kind of feel out your traps if you lack a little bit of a mind-muscle connection. Once they're pumped and you're kind of connected to the movement, it's going to be easier to feel them on other exercises. Perfect. And rack and rest. Very good. MW, I'm all into you, good at what I do, I'm O.M.W. Folks, good news. Earlier, DLB corrected me, accurately, I will say, by surmising that yes, while the traps do make you. significantly masculine and intimidating in a dance club setting, the shoulders do a lot of the work. If you have big delts, motherfuckers, they're going to be like this instead of like that. I just think they look cool. Yeah, and they do. And the good news is, one of the best ways to train traps is by training your shoulders. It turns out that when the scapulae are doing their thing during most lateral raises, the traps are heavily involved. Here's another piece of good news. A lot of people are trying to grow their delts and they're like, yeah, man, I don't want my traps taking over. Why not, motherfucker? It's free trap training. delts are trained just the same, except the traps also help. However, one modification that gets your traps even more involved is if you elevate past that 90 degree line. So what we're going to be doing is lateral raises, but you're going to be doing super ROM laterals. So instead of doing lateral raises to here, which is totally fine, you're going to do them all the way up to here, and then slowly controlling that eccentric. And as soon as you get down, you go all the way up to here, slowly controlling, you're going to feel your traps. instantly and they're gonna dance and sing they better dance and sing or this whole video is canceled all the way up sky high yes perfect just like that slow and then up quick and then slow Oh, I like those. Yeah. We could do eight more sets of those. All right. Typically, how many like sets of stuff do you normally do? This was a question they got. Because like a lot of people are really big into like top sets now. Like you do like your warm-up sets and then you do like one or two top sets and move on. For me, even now, I do minimum of four sets of everything, even with warm-ups. I don't count warm-ups. When I was training for Olympia, it was like six sets of everything, like huge volume. But then like all these. New methods and not to say one's better than the other but like what do you normally do? Do you do like top sets or like more volume sets? It's a good question. Like in one, like if I'm training shoulders, I'll do like five sets on lateral raises but I'll probably do like two different lateral raises so it's really like 10 sets just on laterals. I'll do like a press where there's like five or six sets of that. Fronts, five or six, like everything's like minimum four sets. So there's like a whole logical structure about deciding how many sets to do. And there's a couple kind of checklist items you can make. I always use the stupidest analogies that will get us canceled, but forgive me in advance. I love that. Yeah, it's also perverse. Imagine like... Doing the deed with someone, the act. Okay, I'm picturing it. Picturing it in my head. Yeah, I have it in my head. And like, you've got like eight positions you want to hit, and you do like 20 seconds for each one. what are we doing here like you're just beginning to get in the groove and i'll go hey switch you're like you're like somewhere like aren't we here to have fun no this totally makes sense now right yeah so if if the exercise is in that rep range you like if your technique feels good and you still feel strong i would say do as many sets as you have to until that next set feels like oh i need a change okay like i'm not connected anymore super intuitive like there's sometimes times where something just feels so good and I'll just keep doing it. Yes. And if that, not only just that exercise, but if that weight feels good, just keep going. So like if you have the, you know, like let's say you're doing leg press and you have like three 15 on a machine and it's like sets of like, uh, let's say eight to 12, like you could go down to two 75 and do sets of 15 after a few sets. But if that last set of like nine was just so fucking money. And you're like, dude, that heavy stimulus, fuck it, just keep going. And what I don't like to see people do is like arbitrarily cut off a really good thing to go on to the next. Because it's like, oh, I did my two sets. Now I have to move on. Right. And if it's like, look, you're doing five sets. And after a while, you don't even know what's going on anymore. I need to switch an exercise. Hey, awesome. Next exercise. No problem. But if things are still clicking and working, at the very worst. You could just reduce the weight to stay in that rep range you want. But even if the weight feels good and if the exercise feels good, I just say stay for as long. So when you're saying six sets, that's music majors. So I would say, yeah, anywhere between two to seven sets per exercise is valid given the context. If you're doing one set and then moving on. it's kind of weird. Yeah. Do you really telling me that the next set would have been somehow like worse or something? And I think a lot of the top set stuff comes from really scientifically minded people that are really thinking through stuff. Yeah. And I, I guess I always saw myself. I was like, I'm. I'm just like bro science. I'm just literally just going off my body. But I guess my... No, no, but like, that's not bro science. That's just using intuition. Bro science is you make shit up. Yeah. You're like fucking fibers or fucking cross-stripe. Do this and this. But for a lot of people, the reason they do a top set and then a... down set two reasons one they just don't want to have to do any more heavy sets because they're fucking bitch made and like that's it like you just don't want a 495 on your back again i get it that doesn't mean it's a good idea it just means you're being a little wuss today and the other reason sometimes they do it is they just want to show off like i want to hit my best set on bench but after i don't want to see people watch me struggle on the next one right someone like sees you bench 315 for 15 they're like damn but then you're resting and then the next one's eight they're like ah My first was you show them on Instagram. I don't know if you saw that. I had it recorded. So a lot of times people choose things for kind of egotistical reasons. That's a bad choice. So for me, the most long-winded answer you've ever received to this question, I am a professor, I guess, is once you lock into that technique and that exercise, until you don't feel like it's hitting stuff anymore and it feels psychologically like a drag, go, go, go. Cool, I've been doing it right all this time. Turns out, oh yeah, oh yeah. Boom, fuck you. Take that, science. I love volume. Speaking of, let's do it on a set. And then sky high for the last one. Extra slow on the way down. Extra slow. Yes, just like that. Just like that. Just like that. Rack. Perfect. Oh, damn. Shit's getting serious. That's how it works. You want the attention of boys at the gym? Just do some lateral raises and they just come crawling. Hello. Oh, hi. So pretty. it's so pretty girls at home are taking notes like okay lateral raises away your notepad and your excel sheets the rp hypertrophy app has all of your workouts displayed in one place with guided videos on exercise techniques and a program that evolves to better suit your needs the longer you use the app all you have to do is follow the plan right on your phone and get the gains click on the link in the description of this video to get started Two things left. Two tips left. One is, I know you motherfuckers out there want to do drugs. I ain't gonna take that from you. I'm not here to kick dicks out of your mouth. I mean... Works. Analogy works. I guess. It went through your head, didn't it? Just... Okay. But that was my dick. So, if you're going to do shrugs, they're dope. They're great for traps. I'm not here to do some weird science shit where I flip the universe apart. Technically shrugs don't even fuck. Shut up, science man. We're going to do shrugs, but we're going to do them shits right. And that means you're going to have to impress Stacey at the gym some other way because it's not going to be by putting a ton of fucking weight on the bar. It's going to be by doing the shift correctly, which is going to require taking weight off the bar. All right, so most shrugs, I will demonstrate. Oh, sorry. Before I demonstrate, you can do this technique with a straight bar, with an easy bar, with dumbbells, with a shrug machine. It's universal principles. We just happen to be using the hex bar because it exists, and it's here. And it looks like it could be our friend. Hello. Hello, Mike and Dana. Will you be my friend? Well, sure, Hexbar, but I just met you. No, come over and play video games and stay forever. Okay, that's weird. It's not even a funny joke anymore, Mike. Shut the fuck up. Okay. Bye. All right. I just, how do you deal with him? You should ask me how I deal with myself. I have to hang out with me in my head all day long. I know. Yeah. And I have dreams at night. I wake up, am I tired of me? I'm like, fuck, it's still me. All right. So if you're going to do shrugs in a way that's effective, but maybe not the most efficient, you're going to load like 8 trillion pounds on there. You're going to make sure that Stacey across the gym sees you. And if she's not looking by that point, you're going to have to do some grunting. So you get to the bar and you go, She's still not looking. But you don't want to look over because you don't want to look like you're simping, right? What if Stacey has her headphones in? You're going to have to break a mirror or something to get her to look in. In any case, once you start shrugging, you're going to have to have minimum... range of motion, and all the range of motion actually comes from all the muscles that aren't working, like your hips and your calves. Ah! You know how to do that, right? That's how not to train traps. Here's how to actually train traps. what you're going to do is put not so much weight on the bar we're going to just demo with this but for you to be honest this is going to fuck you up one way or the other you are going to keep everything stable and you are going to enter a concentric contraction for the traps and then keep a top hold isometric for fully two seconds and then slowly release the eccentric all the way down so it looks like this boom These are the things I have not done before. Never. Just like that. Make sense? Yep. Give that a shot. It's going to suck. First time, guys. First time. First time. Two second hold. Down slow. And rack. Beautiful. Now we're going to put some weight on there to do the next and last thing. Whoa. Thin metal 45s. Have you ever seen these? No. Whoa, weird. And it made a gong sound. Today's final... trap tip, more of an advanced technique that can work really well. You can extend any set of shrugs that you would like by cheating. I'm a big fan of cheating personally. I cheat on my taxes. I haven't cheated on my wife. Oh my God. It's with men. They don't count. Right, Rob? That's not her. My man. That's not her. Tuesday was awesome, by the way. So what you're going to do is do as many shrugs as you can with a good standard technique, just like Dana showed. After you can't do that anymore, you are going to use your hips and legs to propel the concentric. And then you're going to use your traps to stick and slowly burn out the eccentric. This is going to be... fucking terrible. Let me demonstrate super quick. So you do your standard up and slow and up and slow. And let's say you can't do it anymore. Cause this one just didn't go hot. You're going to go boom. Oh, and it sucks. And as a matter of fact, it sucks so much, I'm too lazy to continue. And now DLB will take over. I hope I can do that weight. Oh, look at your traps. My God. I don't know. I think you could shrug the world if you wanted. Remember, the big critical factor here is when you're pushing them up, don't just come back down. Push to hold. It's like you're latching them up there. Yes. Okay. Let's get it. So we're going. Were they even up? It felt like my... I wasn't even moving. Towards the end it'll feel like they're not doing anything, but I promise they were moving. You got a little pump there? Yeah. Gorgeous. Are they out yet? They're out. see them from the back. But I don't know how to do that. So you're elevating. You've got to depress. You've got to tilt your shoulders down. Pretend you have really heavy dumbbells and just go like this. Okay. Then cross your arms in front of you. Elbows down. Elbows down. Neck up. Yeah, there you go. There they are. Okay. Huge. It's no Kristen Nunn, but it's fine. The most feminine muscle in the human body. The most feminine. DLB, thank you so much for letting us waste an hour and a half of your time. Fine. Do you feel more trappalicious? I do. Would it be accurate to say that you're now feeling even trapperagious? Trappasaurus. Trappasaurus. Trappasaurus. Probably the most dangerous dinosaur in the fossil record. In the fossil record. Velociraptors. I know Just fucking like this Paleontologists don't know what he ate or what he did But they just know he walked around like that Trappasaurus Rex Yeah, he flexed hard Folks, if you want bigger traps And you want to learn how to train super, super in depth We have tons of other videos on our channel The Scientific Principles of Hypertrophy Training ebook We do have for sale And I'm sure you can pirate the fuck out of it somewhere on the internet at this point I did I'm going to give you all the Motherfucker Why do you think I got so jacked? God damn it Well, at least the methods work. Folks, DLB is amazing. A living legend in the living flesh. And a person who, despite Entropy's best efforts, simply refuses to age. Are you living in number 22, girl? I'll take it. I'm gonna ID that shit. You can't be in this club. 64 looks good on you. Yo, real talk. I'm glad you brought that up. I was, my wife and I were having dinner with some friends at the, what the hell's that called? Cheesecake Factory yesterday. And our waitress was a woman who legitimately looked no older than 50, but she was 68. And we started talking like, oh my God, blah, blah, blah. And then I started my usual bullshit, as you can probably tell. And I was like, how does, what's his name look? And like Nick Walker was with us. Nick Walker, Nick Walker. And he's 30. And we're like, like how old does he look and she's like about 30 and he was like oh wow jared was with us and uh he's 31 and she's like he looks about 29 okay and my wife is 42 but she looks like she's 15 or whatever because the asians don't age like us and uh i'm 40 this is terrible i'm 40 i am 41 i'm older than you yeah yeah mom Somebody's son. Son. And no joke, I was like, how old do I look? And she literally, she literally was like, probably like your early to mid 50s. And I was like... And I began to cry. I didn't really cry, but I knew it was coming because apparently I look old. Years of steroid abuse. And also being an Ashkenazi Jew means you're kind of born broken and old to begin with. You just unleashed the secret of why I don't age. You're not Jewish? I'm not Jewish That helps No steroids That helps Girls Legit public service announcement Contest bodybuilding Plus steroids will age the living fuck out of you I mean So if you want to look young And fit and whatever it is girls like to look like Stay off the sauce But after here's the best part of the story After I told her I was 40 She was a very kind sweet midwestern woman And And she started to backpedal. And she was like, but no, no, no, it's not that you look like that. It's that you speak in a really mature way. Oh, yeah. I know that's not true. That's a lie. So, yeah, I stared down a gun barrel for a while that day, but I just was too chicken shit to do it. Well, I'm glad you were scared. Thank you. Be scared, folks. See you next time.

Here's how to actually train traps. Folks, the word traps has, I believe, five letters, if memory serves, but I bought three extra letters with me today, D-L-B. The one and only, holy shit.

I don't even train traps. But she does do that. Today, I will. First time ever. Folks, a lot of people train traps wrong, and we have a lot of awesome tips for you to train traps more correctly.

If you want bigger traps, which is going to make you more of a man and more of a woman at the same time, figure that out. Three, two, one, join in for our traps video. All right, folks. So first, let's talk about what the traps are and what they do.

Good news. There are three parts of the trap, ma'am. so formal we got lower traps we got mid traps and we have these upper traps here now the awesome thing about the mid and lower traps because you can think oh snap like i had all i work to do i got to train all kinds of traps there's three parts it's like a task i'm back in middle school i don't know how to write it's a bad dream i thought there was only one part of the traps there's three i don't remember the three really good news your rowing motions in your back training are going to unequivocally train your lower and middle traps So totally fine that you almost never have to focus on them. There is a movement called the Kelso Shrug.

You can Google that if you're interested in weird exercises that will train those for you. But really, rowing just kills them. So when we're talking about training traps and for the rest of this video, we're really talking about upper traps. There's also another reason why we only want to train upper traps specifically. Because when you're in a nightclub and some guy sizes you up all wrong, he's not going to fucking size your back of your back up.

mid traps he can't see that shit it's in that little the cutoff you're wearing but he's gonna see these bad boys and if i'm in the club and i'm up to no good i'm like what's up man i thought they were looking at my delts though like so well delts are cool but here's the thing I'm glad you brought that up. Delts are dope, but delts are kind of like, no offense, like a fuckboy muscle. No.

If you have big delts that are all rounded, people are like, okay, you're at the gym doing this. This is your channel, but I totally disagree. Okay, but that's okay. You can be wrong. And so I could agree with you, but we would both be wrong.

And then they are sizing up your delts. Fine. Fine deal, B.

They're sizing up your delts. The delts set the width, right? But if you have no traps, you don't have that man shit. I don't know how to do that.

Well, that's because you're not a man. man yeah okay problem solved there so if you want to start becoming a man i just say just fucking get big traps which is to say after we record this video watch it back start training your traps a lot and then after about five days you'll be i'll be able to do most muscular finally oh yeah in the mirror okay and so the upper traps are what we care about and that brings me to my next point so point number two people think the upper traps have only one function but it turns out they have two major functions. Function one. Function one is to elevate the scapula. But there's also the scapular rotation component that the traps do.

So, ma'am, if you could please turn around. So, if you just want to elevate really quick, yeah, okay, your traps are doing it. But there's also the levator scapulae muscles and all this other stuff that does all the pulling.

The traps are also involved in tilting the scapulae up and back. So if you were to take your elbows and raise them like this, you guys see that shit? Do it again, DLB, real quick.

Boom. You guys see the traps are literally, just a couple more reps, are literally moving. Thank God you're jacked and lean because this would be really difficult if you weren't.

Those are trap functions. So through the magic of science and actually opening up an anatomy book, we are able to surmise that yes, shrugging is a big part of trap training, but it is by no means the only part of trap training. So now we're going to go through a couple of trap exercises and insights and ways of doing them that you may never have seen before, leaving your life empty and hopeless. until now.

But salvation has come. Big traps are going to be yours mere days away, so write that note to your high school crush to finally give it to her, because when you show up with big traps, usually she just slams the door in your face. She'll swoon now.

Yeah, or at least she'll slam the door and you'll trap into the door, and then you're into some legal trouble. But in any case, let's go train traps. You gotta show her. Dear God! What is it?

Live by the sword, die by the sword? You make your name in fitness as a hardcore trainer? Deadlifter on the menu.

I did powerlifting for a small stint of my life and I will never go back. Props to all powerlifters out there. I can't. It's... it's a weird phenomenon here.

I think they need to check their floors. Less than cooperative. Deadlifts. Deadlifts for traps.

Why are we mentioning deadlifts? Because when you do... deadlifts for your glutes, your hamstrings, depending on how you do them, your inner thighs, your lower back, your mid back, your upper back. It also involves living dog shit out of your traps.

And so when you're doing deadlifts, you've already taken. taken such a huge chunk out of your trap training that you might not have to do a ton of trap training on top of that. However, if you don't do deadlift, then you're going to have to do trap training significantly more if you want that Tom Hardy in prison look. Do you know who Tom Hardy is? Yeah.

Do you look at him and wonder why you married Rob Bailey instead? Because I do all the time. Why you married Rob Bailey? You didn't know about that? Ancient history, girl.

Don't worry. He doesn't still text me all the time. How was the divorce? Every night.

uh no divorce we just decided to go our separate ways technically we're still legally married oh so if he croaks before his due time i'm coming for half your shit so deadlifting for traps i mean you can deadlift kind of any way you want it's going to hit the traps one way or another so we're just going to demonstrate like really good deadlift technique conventional and there's a modified way to deadlift for traps we're going to save that for stiff legged deadlift which are also a big part of trap training so for regular deadlift you're just going to get the bar close To yourself, ideally, you would use VersaGrips or something like that, so the grip's not a factor. Tighten up your back so that your lower back is relatively straight. You can relax your arms. Arms are just hooks, and you just stand up and slowly, under control, touch gently and stand back up, and that's how you do a deadlift, and it's going to hit your traps. Now, really quick note before we have Ms. Daylin Bailey demonstrate these.

Trap training, like almost every other muscle, benefits from volume. So if you want the biggest conversion for traps for the deadlift, higher reps and multiple sets are the way to go. Sets of 10 to 15, four or five sets.

Will the rest of your body survive? Probably not. But if it can, you're going to have big-ass traps.

Dope. You want to do a couple deadlifts real quick? Yeah. All right, have at it. You've got to get to it quick because it'll run away.

So a really cool part about the deadlift is that it actually trains more or less the entire trap. When Dana's setting up and starting, you can see the vector of force. Is it okay if I touch you? Sorry, I already touched you and then I asked if it's okay. The vector of force.

is actually going through the mid traps here. And when she comes up, you're going to see the vector of force is going through the upper trap. So the deadlift actually takes care of kind of all of your traps.

Go ahead and hit some reps there. Boom. So it starts at the bottom, mid traps. And then at the top, it's upper traps, which is really dope. And which is why if you deadlift enough for a long enough history of time, you're just going to have to get bigger traps.

There's no way around it. And you get bigger glutes. You get a stronger core.

You get bigger hamstrings. And to be honest, that's how you grow up to become a man. Or a woman.

Or a very strong, muscular woman who doesn't take no for an answer. Even when men say no and they really mean it. But you're like, no, I'm taking it. All right, you're good. I'm just describing your college days, aren't I?

Shut up and take it. Luke, please, I have a family. No means no. Yeah, whatever. Whatever, kid.

Next trap tip. You ready? Trap tips!

That's like a cable, a late night cable access TV show. Trap tips with Dr. Mike. There you go. Trap has two meanings.

One is the trapezius muscle, and the other is a house. inside of the inner city in which drugs are administered and sold to various residents of said city. Addictive drugs that are usually illegal, like crack and heroin and possibly powdered cocaine, but unlikely because it's expensive.

The more you know. Do you guys love these facts? They hate them.

Oh. All right. So stiff-legged deadlifts. You do them for big hamstrings. You do them for bigger glutes.

Why do you do them? Hamstrings. There you go.

But there is a way of doing stiff-legged deadlifts that extra hits your traps. And the thing is, stiff-legged deadlifts just hit your traps in general. A lot of it is because a stiff-legged deadlift is a very slow eccentric. And all of the reps in the set is just going to take a lot of time. And your traps have to be active so that your shoulders don't fall off.

So it's going to fuck you up. However, this version of Stuffed Leg of Deadlifts, we're going to have... try is especially for the traps.

It's going to hit your hamstrings for sure. It actually sets you up in a good hamstring position, but it's bonus round trap stuff. So let me demonstrate and then we'll have you do a little thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. So typically what you would do is you would set up for a stiff leg of deadlift with a relaxed posture. And you would cock your hips back, big tummy, knees back, and come up. Normal.

For the trap version of this, I never said it was going to be fun. What you're going to do is push your chest out a ton, push your tummy out a bunch, push your back out a ton, and also elevate your traps the entire time. So you're shrugging the whole time.

Shrug up. Oh. And what you're going to find is as you do more reps, you're going to get so tired that over time you're going to start losing that position. If you start at the top with elevated scapulae and contracted traps. What that ends up doing is the entire stiff leg adductor motion screws up your hamstrings like it's supposed to, but also the entire time, try as you might, you're not going to be able to keep it there the whole time, you're slowly performing an eccentric contraction.

that maximum force at the top pulling you apart is insanely muscle growth promoting it will fuck up your traps like you cannot believe and i mean cannot believe because it's not true i'm making all the shit up guys we ran out of content ideas i don't even have a phd so you're not even a doctor he's not even a doctor mike he's just mike god all this time the whole time all right you want to try it uh yeah yeah it looked really hard it's hard boom okay butt back chest up keep that shrug keep that shrug keep that shrug keep that shrug just don't go as far i guess correct And if they start slipping down, no big deal, but you want to resist as much as possible. And then slow on the way down, keep those traps up as if you're going to do another. And gently place it on the ground. Oh, my God. My neck is very tense now.

Yeah. Never done them. You can't say that anymore. You just did.

I've done them once now. Holy shit. That makes sense, yeah?

Yeah. All right. Let's see what else I have in my bag of trips. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness.

I can do that stuff. I like this. Easy.

We'll do a couple sets. Why am I bent over a bench? It could only be two things.

The first thing it could be is my 780 pound dominatrix is mere minutes away and expects me to be ready for it. our weekly session. You just ground and pound.

That's what she says. I know. I'm the ground in that case.

The other reason is we're doing Y-raises. Now, Y-raises are a fine shoulder exercise. but they turn out to be an even better trap exercise, especially if done on an inclined bench. Now, you can do these standing.

You can do these on cables. You can do them underwater. But above water, weight tends to feel more real, you know? Have you ever tried lifting stuff underwater? No.

It makes you feel cool because you feel strong. I've seen it on Instagram. Yeah.

It looks stupid. Wow. Okay, GLB.

Let's just take the negative energy down a little bit. I thought we were all about positivity. We're influencers.

Isn't that what you are? Nah. Oh, what are you then? DLB. Wow.

Ladies and gentlemen, DLB. I'm just DLB. I'm just me, bro. Get off me.

All right. So, why raises? You can have a couple different grips. You can do the thumbs up grip. I just prefer a regular conventional grip.

And what you're going to want to do is come all the way up as high as your shoulders let you, pause for a split second, slowly control the eccentric. I feel my traps just fucking sitting here. Fuck this.

I feel my traps. Just existing. Just existing, for sure. So, what you're going to do is come up and...

your body's going to look like the letter Y real hard exercise to remember. So up and up. Oh God. I feel my traps already.

And up. I'm tired. Do you want to take over?

Sure. All right. All right.

Remember the traps are involved in rotating the scapula and there's a lot of that going on in this exercise. Bonus, it's a halfway decent, not so great force curve delt exercise, but it will absolutely fry traps. Dana, way to get that top pause.

That's awesome. Paws squeezing those traps really lets you connect to the muscle. And this is a great exercise to do before heavier trap training to kind of feel out your traps if you lack a little bit of a mind-muscle connection. Once they're pumped and you're kind of connected to the movement, it's going to be easier to feel them on other exercises. Perfect.

And rack and rest. Very good. MW, I'm all into you, good at what I do, I'm O.M.W. Folks, good news. Earlier, DLB corrected me, accurately, I will say, by surmising that yes, while the traps do make you. significantly masculine and intimidating in a dance club setting, the shoulders do a lot of the work.

If you have big delts, motherfuckers, they're going to be like this instead of like that. I just think they look cool. Yeah, and they do. And the good news is, one of the best ways to train traps is by training your shoulders.

It turns out that when the scapulae are doing their thing during most lateral raises, the traps are heavily involved. Here's another piece of good news. A lot of people are trying to grow their delts and they're like, yeah, man, I don't want my traps taking over.

Why not, motherfucker? It's free trap training. delts are trained just the same, except the traps also help.

However, one modification that gets your traps even more involved is if you elevate past that 90 degree line. So what we're going to be doing is lateral raises, but you're going to be doing super ROM laterals. So instead of doing lateral raises to here, which is totally fine, you're going to do them all the way up to here, and then slowly controlling that eccentric. And as soon as you get down, you go all the way up to here, slowly controlling, you're going to feel your traps. instantly and they're gonna dance and sing they better dance and sing or this whole video is canceled all the way up sky high yes perfect just like that slow and then up quick and then slow Oh, I like those.

Yeah. We could do eight more sets of those. All right. Typically, how many like sets of stuff do you normally do? This was a question they got.

Because like a lot of people are really big into like top sets now. Like you do like your warm-up sets and then you do like one or two top sets and move on. For me, even now, I do minimum of four sets of everything, even with warm-ups. I don't count warm-ups. When I was training for Olympia, it was like six sets of everything, like huge volume.

But then like all these. New methods and not to say one's better than the other but like what do you normally do? Do you do like top sets or like more volume sets? It's a good question.

Like in one, like if I'm training shoulders, I'll do like five sets on lateral raises but I'll probably do like two different lateral raises so it's really like 10 sets just on laterals. I'll do like a press where there's like five or six sets of that. Fronts, five or six, like everything's like minimum four sets.

So there's like a whole logical structure about deciding how many sets to do. And there's a couple kind of checklist items you can make. I always use the stupidest analogies that will get us canceled, but forgive me in advance.

I love that. Yeah, it's also perverse. Imagine like...

Doing the deed with someone, the act. Okay, I'm picturing it. Picturing it in my head.

Yeah, I have it in my head. And like, you've got like eight positions you want to hit, and you do like 20 seconds for each one. what are we doing here like you're just beginning to get in the groove and i'll go hey switch you're like you're like somewhere like aren't we here to have fun no this totally makes sense now right yeah so if if the exercise is in that rep range you like if your technique feels good and you still feel strong i would say do as many sets as you have to until that next set feels like oh i need a change okay like i'm not connected anymore super intuitive like there's sometimes times where something just feels so good and I'll just keep doing it.

Yes. And if that, not only just that exercise, but if that weight feels good, just keep going. So like if you have the, you know, like let's say you're doing leg press and you have like three 15 on a machine and it's like sets of like, uh, let's say eight to 12, like you could go down to two 75 and do sets of 15 after a few sets.

But if that last set of like nine was just so fucking money. And you're like, dude, that heavy stimulus, fuck it, just keep going. And what I don't like to see people do is like arbitrarily cut off a really good thing to go on to the next.

Because it's like, oh, I did my two sets. Now I have to move on. Right.

And if it's like, look, you're doing five sets. And after a while, you don't even know what's going on anymore. I need to switch an exercise.

Hey, awesome. Next exercise. No problem. But if things are still clicking and working, at the very worst.

You could just reduce the weight to stay in that rep range you want. But even if the weight feels good and if the exercise feels good, I just say stay for as long. So when you're saying six sets, that's music majors. So I would say, yeah, anywhere between two to seven sets per exercise is valid given the context. If you're doing one set and then moving on.

it's kind of weird. Yeah. Do you really telling me that the next set would have been somehow like worse or something? And I think a lot of the top set stuff comes from really scientifically minded people that are really thinking through stuff.

Yeah. And I, I guess I always saw myself. I was like, I'm.

I'm just like bro science. I'm just literally just going off my body. But I guess my... No, no, but like, that's not bro science. That's just using intuition.

Bro science is you make shit up. Yeah. You're like fucking fibers or fucking cross-stripe.

Do this and this. But for a lot of people, the reason they do a top set and then a... down set two reasons one they just don't want to have to do any more heavy sets because they're fucking bitch made and like that's it like you just don't want a 495 on your back again i get it that doesn't mean it's a good idea it just means you're being a little wuss today and the other reason sometimes they do it is they just want to show off like i want to hit my best set on bench but after i don't want to see people watch me struggle on the next one right someone like sees you bench 315 for 15 they're like damn but then you're resting and then the next one's eight they're like ah My first was you show them on Instagram. I don't know if you saw that. I had it recorded.

So a lot of times people choose things for kind of egotistical reasons. That's a bad choice. So for me, the most long-winded answer you've ever received to this question, I am a professor, I guess, is once you lock into that technique and that exercise, until you don't feel like it's hitting stuff anymore and it feels psychologically like a drag, go, go, go.

Cool, I've been doing it right all this time. Turns out, oh yeah, oh yeah. Boom, fuck you. Take that, science.

I love volume. Speaking of, let's do it on a set. And then sky high for the last one. Extra slow on the way down. Extra slow.

Yes, just like that. Just like that. Just like that.

Rack. Perfect. Oh, damn. Shit's getting serious. That's how it works.

You want the attention of boys at the gym? Just do some lateral raises and they just come crawling. Hello.

Oh, hi. So pretty. it's so pretty girls at home are taking notes like okay lateral raises away your notepad and your excel sheets the rp hypertrophy app has all of your workouts displayed in one place with guided videos on exercise techniques and a program that evolves to better suit your needs the longer you use the app all you have to do is follow the plan right on your phone and get the gains click on the link in the description of this video to get started Two things left. Two tips left. One is, I know you motherfuckers out there want to do drugs.

I ain't gonna take that from you. I'm not here to kick dicks out of your mouth. I mean...

Works. Analogy works. I guess. It went through your head, didn't it?

Just... Okay. But that was my dick. So, if you're going to do shrugs, they're dope. They're great for traps.

I'm not here to do some weird science shit where I flip the universe apart. Technically shrugs don't even fuck. Shut up, science man.

We're going to do shrugs, but we're going to do them shits right. And that means you're going to have to impress Stacey at the gym some other way because it's not going to be by putting a ton of fucking weight on the bar. It's going to be by doing the shift correctly, which is going to require taking weight off the bar.

All right, so most shrugs, I will demonstrate. Oh, sorry. Before I demonstrate, you can do this technique with a straight bar, with an easy bar, with dumbbells, with a shrug machine.

It's universal principles. We just happen to be using the hex bar because it exists, and it's here. And it looks like it could be our friend.

Hello. Hello, Mike and Dana. Will you be my friend? Well, sure, Hexbar, but I just met you.

No, come over and play video games and stay forever. Okay, that's weird. It's not even a funny joke anymore, Mike.

Shut the fuck up. Okay. Bye. All right. I just, how do you deal with him?

You should ask me how I deal with myself. I have to hang out with me in my head all day long. I know.

Yeah. And I have dreams at night. I wake up, am I tired of me?

I'm like, fuck, it's still me. All right. So if you're going to do shrugs in a way that's effective, but maybe not the most efficient, you're going to load like 8 trillion pounds on there. You're going to make sure that Stacey across the gym sees you.

And if she's not looking by that point, you're going to have to do some grunting. So you get to the bar and you go, She's still not looking. But you don't want to look over because you don't want to look like you're simping, right? What if Stacey has her headphones in?

You're going to have to break a mirror or something to get her to look in. In any case, once you start shrugging, you're going to have to have minimum... range of motion, and all the range of motion actually comes from all the muscles that aren't working, like your hips and your calves.

Ah! You know how to do that, right? That's how not to train traps. Here's how to actually train traps.

what you're going to do is put not so much weight on the bar we're going to just demo with this but for you to be honest this is going to fuck you up one way or the other you are going to keep everything stable and you are going to enter a concentric contraction for the traps and then keep a top hold isometric for fully two seconds and then slowly release the eccentric all the way down so it looks like this boom These are the things I have not done before. Never. Just like that. Make sense? Yep.

Give that a shot. It's going to suck. First time, guys.

First time. First time. Two second hold. Down slow.

And rack. Beautiful. Now we're going to put some weight on there to do the next and last thing. Whoa. Thin metal 45s.

Have you ever seen these? No. Whoa, weird. And it made a gong sound.

Today's final... trap tip, more of an advanced technique that can work really well. You can extend any set of shrugs that you would like by cheating.

I'm a big fan of cheating personally. I cheat on my taxes. I haven't cheated on my wife.

Oh my God. It's with men. They don't count.

Right, Rob? That's not her. My man.

That's not her. Tuesday was awesome, by the way. So what you're going to do is do as many shrugs as you can with a good standard technique, just like Dana showed.

After you can't do that anymore, you are going to use your hips and legs to propel the concentric. And then you're going to use your traps to stick and slowly burn out the eccentric. This is going to be... fucking terrible. Let me demonstrate super quick.

So you do your standard up and slow and up and slow. And let's say you can't do it anymore. Cause this one just didn't go hot.

You're going to go boom. Oh, and it sucks. And as a matter of fact, it sucks so much, I'm too lazy to continue.

And now DLB will take over. I hope I can do that weight. Oh, look at your traps. My God. I don't know.

I think you could shrug the world if you wanted. Remember, the big critical factor here is when you're pushing them up, don't just come back down. Push to hold. It's like you're latching them up there.

Yes. Okay. Let's get it.

So we're going. Were they even up? It felt like my...

I wasn't even moving. Towards the end it'll feel like they're not doing anything, but I promise they were moving. You got a little pump there?

Yeah. Gorgeous. Are they out yet?

They're out. see them from the back. But I don't know how to do that. So you're elevating. You've got to depress.

You've got to tilt your shoulders down. Pretend you have really heavy dumbbells and just go like this. Okay. Then cross your arms in front of you. Elbows down.

Elbows down. Neck up. Yeah, there you go. There they are.

Okay. Huge. It's no Kristen Nunn, but it's fine.

The most feminine muscle in the human body. The most feminine. DLB, thank you so much for letting us waste an hour and a half of your time. Fine.

Do you feel more trappalicious? I do. Would it be accurate to say that you're now feeling even trapperagious? Trappasaurus.

Trappasaurus. Trappasaurus. Probably the most dangerous dinosaur in the fossil record. In the fossil record. Velociraptors.

I know Just fucking like this Paleontologists don't know what he ate or what he did But they just know he walked around like that Trappasaurus Rex Yeah, he flexed hard Folks, if you want bigger traps And you want to learn how to train super, super in depth We have tons of other videos on our channel The Scientific Principles of Hypertrophy Training ebook We do have for sale And I'm sure you can pirate the fuck out of it somewhere on the internet at this point I did I'm going to give you all the Motherfucker Why do you think I got so jacked? God damn it Well, at least the methods work. Folks, DLB is amazing. A living legend in the living flesh.

And a person who, despite Entropy's best efforts, simply refuses to age. Are you living in number 22, girl? I'll take it.

I'm gonna ID that shit. You can't be in this club. 64 looks good on you.

Yo, real talk. I'm glad you brought that up. I was, my wife and I were having dinner with some friends at the, what the hell's that called?

Cheesecake Factory yesterday. And our waitress was a woman who legitimately looked no older than 50, but she was 68. And we started talking like, oh my God, blah, blah, blah. And then I started my usual bullshit, as you can probably tell.

And I was like, how does, what's his name look? And like Nick Walker was with us. Nick Walker, Nick Walker. And he's 30. And we're like, like how old does he look and she's like about 30 and he was like oh wow jared was with us and uh he's 31 and she's like he looks about 29 okay and my wife is 42 but she looks like she's 15 or whatever because the asians don't age like us and uh i'm 40 this is terrible i'm 40 i am 41 i'm older than you yeah yeah mom Somebody's son.

Son. And no joke, I was like, how old do I look? And she literally, she literally was like, probably like your early to mid 50s.

And I was like... And I began to cry. I didn't really cry, but I knew it was coming because apparently I look old.

Years of steroid abuse. And also being an Ashkenazi Jew means you're kind of born broken and old to begin with. You just unleashed the secret of why I don't age. You're not Jewish? I'm not Jewish That helps No steroids That helps Girls Legit public service announcement Contest bodybuilding Plus steroids will age the living fuck out of you I mean So if you want to look young And fit and whatever it is girls like to look like Stay off the sauce But after here's the best part of the story After I told her I was 40 She was a very kind sweet midwestern woman And And she started to backpedal.

And she was like, but no, no, no, it's not that you look like that. It's that you speak in a really mature way. Oh, yeah.

I know that's not true. That's a lie. So, yeah, I stared down a gun barrel for a while that day, but I just was too chicken shit to do it. Well, I'm glad you were scared.

Thank you. Be scared, folks. See you next time.

Transcript for:Effective Techniques for Training Traps

Transcript for:
Effective Techniques for Training Traps