Strengthening Your Shoulders

A lot of beginners think working your shoulders is all about loading as much weight as you can and shrugging it. This is highly ineffective as form is compromised and other shoulder exercises are neglected.

Shoulder shrugs are easy to cheat on because it’s easy to fall short of the full range of motion on the shrug. Look at this video of behind the back barbell shoulder shrugs and look how the instructor’s traps get a pull.

Instead of loading up the weight, work on squeezing your traps as you bring the weight up using only your traps and not your arms. This will help you build your shoulders up and get your form in line. You should only increase the weight as much as you can without sacrificing any bit of your form. You will find it’s not about the weight but about how you lift it.

Other huge exercises for traps are military barbell press, shoulder press, shoulder flies, and cable shoulder flies. Use varying degrees to hit different parts of the shoulder.