maratoolBarbell Shrugs
How to do the barbell shrugs
- Stand on the floor with your abs drawn in and your back straight.
- Grasp a barbell with a grip a little wider than shoulder width at arms length.
- Drop your shoulders as much as possible to start.
- Raise your shoulder as high as possible.
- Pause for a moment at the top and then return to starting position in a controlled motion.
- Repeat.
Muscles worked
The prime mover is the trapezius, which shrugs the shoulder blade up, rotates it, and pulls it back down.
Every exercise for:Traps
How this movement works
Everything happens at one joint. That gives you direct control over where the tension sits; the trade-off is that the muscle gets no help, so the load that feels hard here is a fraction of what a multi-joint version of the pattern would take. Slow, complete repetitions beat heavy ones.
It is filed under strength: produce force against resistance for a countable number of repetitions, and progress the resistance over time.
What you need
A barbell locks both hands to one bar, so neither side can drift and the load climbs in plate-sized steps. That makes it the simplest way to add weight and the least forgiving thing to bail out of.
Every exercise using:Barbell
These train the traps too, using equipment this one does not:
- Cable Shoulder Shrugscable
- Calf-Machine Shoulder Shrugmachine
- Dumbbell Shrugdumbbell
- Kettlebell Sumo High Pullkettlebell
- Smith Machine Upright Rowsmith machine + machine
Illustration: Everkinetic — CC BY-SA 4.0 — license. Modified versions are shared under the same license. Full attribution →
ⓘ Informational only — not a substitute for professional fitness or medical advice.