Barbell Shrug

Muscles involved:

Back and shoulders:

• Trapezius (primarily the upper fibers and, to a lesser extent, the middle fibers)
• Deltoid (primarily the rear head)

Forearms

• Flexors

Abdomen:

• Rectus abdominis (straight abdominal muscle)
• External oblique (external oblique abdominal muscle)
• Internal oblique (internal oblique abdominal muscle)
• Transversus abdominis (transverse abdominal muscle, 'corset muscle')

Lower back and spine:

• Erector spinae
• Lumbar multifidus
• Quadratus lumborum

1. Place the barbell slightly higher than knee height on the supports of the squat rack.
2. Attach and secure the plates.
3. Stand facing the barbell with your feet hip- or shoulder-width apart. Grip the bar with your hands shoulder-width apart using a pronated grip (palms facing down and backward).
4. Stand upright and lift the barbell off the supports.

A few common mistakes when performing shrugs:

• Bending the arms: You are training the trapezius. These muscles are only responsible for pulling the shoulder blades upward, backward, and/or downward. By bending the arms and pulling the bar higher, you are essentially combining two exercises: shrugs and upright rows. The problem is that during upright rows, the shoulder muscles have to do more work than the trapezius. This means you have to adjust the weight and number of repetitions to the capacity of the shoulders, while the trapezius can perform more work.
• Rolling the shoulders: You regularly see people roll their shoulders backward at the top of the movement (or forward in behind-the-back shrugs). This adds nothing to the effectiveness of the movement! Gravity pulls the weight downward, not backward or forward. You therefore do not add resistance. When rolling forward during behind-the-back shrugs, it would not matter if there were resistance in that direction. Pulling the shoulders forward is not a function of the trapezius. Besides making the exercise no more effective, it also increases the risk of injury. Keep it simple: Straight up and straight down.
• Bending forward: Protect your spine by remaining upright instead of bending over the bar.
• Avoid hyperextending the spine: Do not lean too far backward, thereby avoiding unnecessary pressure on the spinal discs.
• Raise the shoulders instead of lowering the head: The range of motion of shrugs is already short, so do not make it unnecessarily shorter. This also prevents unnecessary neck discomfort.

A few tips:

The trapezius is a relatively strong muscle, partly because of the short range of motion it has to perform. This means it can soon be trained with fairly heavy weights.

• Therefore, use straps: The use of so-called straps, bands that you can wrap around your wrists and the barbell (or dumbbell), may quickly prove necessary. The ability of the fingers to hold the barbell may often be lower than the ability of the trapezius to raise the bar. The fingers may give out while the trapezius could still perform more repetitions.
• You may use a weightlifting belt to protect the spine. Because of the potentially heavy weight used, high pressure can develop on the spine.
• Start from an easy position: Place the barbell at a point just below the lowest point of the exercise's range of motion (as described). Avoid having to start and finish with a heavy deadlift.

In front of or behind the back?

Barbell shrugs can be performed in front of and behind the body. There appears to be little data available on the activity of the different parts of the trapezius in these different variations.

Some claim (probably incorrectly) that performing shrugs behind the back activates the middle fibers more. This is the part that primarily adds thickness to the middle of the back. The upper fibers also add 'height': the triangle of fibers that runs from the shoulder blades to the neck. You would supposedly target these mainly by holding the barbell in front. Looking at the function and direction of the different parts of the trapezius, this theory does not seem very plausible.

The rhomboid muscle in the upper back pulls on the shoulder blades from three different directions: from above, from the middle, and from below. In both shrug variations, you pull the shoulder blades upward, thereby targeting the upper part of the trapezius. The middle fibers become active when the shoulder blades are pulled backward. This seems more likely to occur when the weight is in front of the shoulder blades. If the bar is already behind or directly underneath the shoulder blades, they no longer need to be brought backward. It therefore seems more logical that the middle of the trapezius is activated sooner when the bar is held in front of the body.

A practical consideration for men may be that holding the bar behind the back is somewhat more comfortable.

Barbell or dumbbells?

Isolating the upper fibers of the trapezius therefore seems to occur mainly when the bar is held behind the body. The same applies to performing the exercise with the weight at the sides of the body, as with dumbbells. The hands are then directly below the shoulder joint and therefore move straight upward.

However, dumbbells may have a few disadvantages. For the appropriate resistance, you soon need relatively heavy dumbbells. These press against the body, and the thighs may be partially pressed between the dumbbell plates. This creates a jerky range of motion. This is often 'solved' by pressing the hands slightly outward. However, this requires considerable effort from the shoulders, causing them to fatigue sooner than the trapezius.

• Dumbbell shrugs
• Trap bar shrug
• Cable shrug
• Smith machine shrug