Traps is the muscle between neck and shoulders. It stabilize your shoulder and upper back. Before you start building any muscle, you need to make the muscles flexible.
Usually, if you don't do any exercise, your traps will be tight and short. Start with Yoga stretches to lengthen and relax the traps. Then, to increase the size of the traps muscles, you need to do exercises that compress the muscles either with your body weight or with weights like dumbbells.
Yoga Stretches:
1. Child Pose
2. Eagle Pose
3. Self-Hug
4. Downward-Dog (for lower trap)
5. Savasana
No-weight resistance exercise: (These exercises contract the muscles)
Shoulder Blade Squeeze
Stand with good posture, with your arms at your sides.
Slowly squeeze the shoulder blades together, and hold for three seconds.
Slowly release the shoulder blades back to their relaxed positions.
This exercise can also be done holding your arms out front in a goal post position.
Shoulder Shrug:
Stand up straight with good posture.
Raise your shoulders as high as you can get them, as if attempting to touch your ears with them.
Hold for a count of two.
Release them back into their relaxed positions.
Repeat 20 reps.
Upright row:
Stand up straight.
With your fists clenched together, lift your arms as high as you can while bending your elbows, keeping your hands close to the front of your body.
Hold for a count of two.
Release your arms back into a relaxed position, fists still together.
Repeat for 20 reps.
Push-Up(Body Weight resistance exercise for middle and lower traps):
The key here is to lower your body till the ground level. If you lower your body only up to elbow level, only your pects gets work-out. To give resistance to traps, you need to lower your body below your elbow level. Then, your traps gets contracted
Weight-bearing Exercise:
Keep dumpbell in your hand while doing first three exercises above. The dumbbell weight give more resistance to the traps muscles.
Usually, if you don't do any exercise, your traps will be tight and short. Start with Yoga stretches to lengthen and relax the traps. Then, to increase the size of the traps muscles, you need to do exercises that compress the muscles either with your body weight or with weights like dumbbells.
Yoga Stretches:
1. Child Pose
2. Eagle Pose
3. Self-Hug
4. Downward-Dog (for lower trap)
5. Savasana
No-weight resistance exercise: (These exercises contract the muscles)
Shoulder Blade Squeeze
Stand with good posture, with your arms at your sides.
Slowly squeeze the shoulder blades together, and hold for three seconds.
Slowly release the shoulder blades back to their relaxed positions.
This exercise can also be done holding your arms out front in a goal post position.
Shoulder Shrug:
Stand up straight with good posture.
Raise your shoulders as high as you can get them, as if attempting to touch your ears with them.
Hold for a count of two.
Release them back into their relaxed positions.
Repeat 20 reps.
Upright row:
Stand up straight.
With your fists clenched together, lift your arms as high as you can while bending your elbows, keeping your hands close to the front of your body.
Hold for a count of two.
Release your arms back into a relaxed position, fists still together.
Repeat for 20 reps.
Push-Up(Body Weight resistance exercise for middle and lower traps):
The key here is to lower your body till the ground level. If you lower your body only up to elbow level, only your pects gets work-out. To give resistance to traps, you need to lower your body below your elbow level. Then, your traps gets contracted
Weight-bearing Exercise:
Keep dumpbell in your hand while doing first three exercises above. The dumbbell weight give more resistance to the traps muscles.
