Snatch Shrug

Muscles worked

The prime mover is the trapezius, which shrugs the shoulder blade up, rotates it, and pulls it back down.

Because more than one joint is moving, the work does not stay in one place: the forearms hold the grip, which is often what gives out first; the deltoids stabilise the shoulder and add force at the top of the range.

Every exercise for:TrapsForearmsShoulders

How this movement works

The load travels toward you and several joints bend to bring it there. The arms finish work the back starts, so grip and elbow flexors sit in the path of every repetition: when people stall on a compound pull, it is more often the hands giving out than the primary muscle running out of force.

It is filed under olympic weightlifting. The bar must move fast enough for you to get underneath it, which makes this a skill rather than a grind: low repetitions, well short of where fatigue starts editing technique.

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:

• Standing Dumbbell Upright Rowdumbbell
• Upright Cable Rowcable
• Upright Row - With Bandsband
• Calf-Machine Shoulder Shrugmachine
• Kettlebell Sumo High Pullkettlebell

Difficulty

Listed at intermediate level. It assumes you already own the underlying pattern and can hold position under load — if the position breaks before the target muscle tires, drop back to a beginner variation until it does not.

Of the 18 traps exercises in this database, 3 are listed at intermediate level.