Dumbbell shrugs, just like doing any trapezius exercise, is only one of the many choices that you have when you want to specifically isolate your traps. When using dumbbells you will have a slightly different variation and angle on the area that gets stressed when you are doing shrugs this way versus using a barbell. The reason that doing dumbbell shrugs is slightly different is because your hands are in a different position when holding the weight compared to barbell shrugs, upright rows or some other barbell movement. This means that you will be developing a slightly different part of the rather complex set of muscle insertions that are connected to your trapezius muscle group.
If you are a beginner just starting out and you have never trained your traps directly before, then it is strongly recommended that you start off with a weight that is very light so that you can get accustomed to the movement. You need to be able to concentrate to be able to specifically isolate the traps and using a weight that you can easily handle is very important.
What that means is that you need to concentrate on the “squeeze” and peak contraction at the very top of this movement so that you can feel your traps contracting and tensing up at the top position. Just like training any other body part, the more you are able to isolate a muscle that you are working, the better your results will be.
So in order to do the exercise correctly you need to first stand with your legs around shoulder width apart. When you hold the dumbbells, your palms will be facing each other or rather facing towards your body before you even start the movement. You then need to make sure that you hang the dumbbells at your sides to make sure that your arms are fully extended.
The execution of this movement is basically pretty simple as you will shrug your shoulders up while keeping both of your arms completely straight. You should feel the weight on your trapezius muscles as you shrug upwards. When you get to the very top of the shrug, you should make sure that you pause for a brief moment and stay in the top shrug position to maximize the tension on the traps.
From the top position, you will lower the weight down and return the dumbbells to the starting position to equal one full repetition. Repeat this movement for the amount of repetitions that you want to do for your set. It is always good to combine your trapezius training along with either your back workout or your shoulder training. Most people like to include their trapezius training at the very end of their workout which is a good routine to follow since you really want to keep all of your peak strength for big, compound mass building exercises earlier on in your workout.
There are several different choices for exercises that target your trapezius muscles. Be careful to make sure that you are doing no more than 6-8 total sets when training your traps since they are a relatively small muscle group and you do not need a lot of sets to target the area for growth. Below is a list of other trapezius exercises that you can do along with dumbbell shrugs:
- Barbell Shrugs
- Barbells Shrugs Behind The Back
- Cable Shrugs
- Dumbbell Shrugs
- Low Cable Rows To Neck
- Smith Machine Shrugs
- Smith Machine Upright Rows
- Dumbbell Upright Rows
- Barbell Upright Rows
- Cable Upright Rows
