Turtle Holds For Traps and Neck

This is one of my favorite methods for hitting the "yoke", which means the upper traps and neck.

I find it more productive than normal shrugs...you're taking GRIP and how much weight you can shrug into the TOP position out of the equation.

The traps are powerful muscles and they can really take a beating in terms of loading. To really build them, you need to challenge them HARD.

When it comes to neck training, I find this method also hits a lot of your neck musculature without moving your neck out of neutral.

You're going to put a LOT of weight on the bar (I've got 695 lbs on the bar here - start lighter, though) and do essentially a lockout partial squat...though the focus is NOT on the legs.

At the start of the rep, before you move the weight off the rails, you're going to elevate your shoulder girdle as high as you can against NO resistance.

This part looks like I'm ducking my head down (hence the "turtle" hold name) but in reality, I'm bringing my shoulders UP and moving my torso DOWN.

THEN stand up, fighting as hard as you can to keep your upper traps fully contracted and as high as possible against the overwhelming resistance.

KEEP FIGHTING to keep them elevated as long as you possibly can. This is critical.

Depending on how much weight you're using, this may only be a few seconds.

At that point, do a TRUE negative and FIGHT the weight all the way down, i.e. try to keep shrugging up as the weight pulls your shoulder girdle down.

When the weight is down, relax your traps for a few seconds and let the weight stretch them.

Then set the weight back down on the rails and repeat.

You can do this on a standing calf raise machine or a squat machine, too.

I'm using a Marrs Bar for this. Any safety squat bar will work for it, though.

You could do barbell shrugs in the rack with a similar concept...shrug high against no resistance THEN stand up and let the traps take the load at the top, then fight the negative. That does work, too (use straps or hooks).

If you've got a cable cross-over setup or some bands, I would also recommend trying Cable-Dumbbell Shrugs to hit more upper trap fibers.

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