The 3 Best Trap Exercises for More Defined Shoulders

Ask someone in the weight room to point to their trapezius muscle, or “traps” in gym-speak, and they’ll probably gesture toward the small mounds of muscle nestled in between their neck and shoulders. But while those are technically part of your traps, they’re really just the tip of the iceberg.“There’s actually a lot more mass to the traps than most people realize,” says Luke Carlson, founder and CEO of Discover Strength. Your traps are a diamond-shaped group of muscle fibers that extend from the sides of your neck to your shoulders and down to a point at around your mid-back, covering about a third of the visible muscle on your back.However, because the traps live in a gray area somewhere in between shoulder day and back day, they’re often left out of both. “When someone wants to add lean muscle tissue, a lot of times they think about the chest, the lats, the biceps, and the triceps,” Carlson says. “But we usually miss out on training the traps, and there’s a significant amount of muscle tissue there.”Increasing your overall muscle mass isn’t the only reason to do trap exercises. According to experts, strengthening your traps can prevent injuries in and out of the gym and even help protect your neck from the posture-destroying effects of staring at your phone.Why You Should Train Your TrapsDeveloping your traps is a surefire way to fill out a formidable physique (see: Dwayne Johnson in The Smashing Machine) because, unlike most back muscles, they’re also top-tier mirror muscles. “I think it’s a great muscle to train, because it’s just so visible, whether you’re wearing a T-shirt, tank top, or even a dress shirt,” says Carlson.But cutting a hulking silhouette isn’t the only way that targeting your traps can benefit your appearance. “The other benefit of training the traps is we can prevent things like kyphosis, which is that forward curvature of the spinal column—what we call ’tech neck’ today,” Carlson says. “The traps are what pull the head and the neck back. So, from a posture standpoint, it’s an awesome muscle to train.”Giving your traps the attention they deserve can pay dividends in your other workouts too. “It’s obviously great for posture and your day-to-day, but working your traps is also going to carry over into keeping your shoulders healthy for pressing and other movements,” says Antony Brown, personal training leader at Life Time in Lake Zurich, Illinois.“The traps really stabilize the shoulder joint,” says Brown. “If we can better lock the shoulders back and down on the bench press, or keep them nice and stable while overhead pressing, that’s going to lead to a much stronger press because you’ve got a way stronger base.”Ready to pay tribute to the unsung heroes of your upper back? Here are the three best trap exercises, according to personal trainers.Three Trainer-Approved Exercises for Building Bigger TrapsShrugShrugs target the upper portion of the traps—the part that’s most visible in the mirror and, of course, selfies. “This is what you see when you look at someone’s neck and shoulders from the front,” Carlson says. Working on your upper traps is one of the best ways to get yoked around your neck area, and shrugs are both the simplest and most efficient way to do it. Fortunately, it’s also one of the most accessible exercises out there. No gym membership? No problem. You can do shrugs with a pair of dumbbells or kettlebells, or a barbell or trap bar, but in a pinch you could use anything from grocery bags to backpacks filled with books, as long as you’re able to keep the weight somewhat even between them.How to Do It:Grab a pair of dumbbells and stand tall with one weight in each hand, arms hanging at your sides. This is your starting position.Keeping your arms straight, slowly shrug your shoulders up toward your ears. “Of course, your shoulders aren’t actually going to touch your ears, but that’s kind of your goal,” Carlson says. “The key is you’re focused on pulling the shoulders straight up”—and not allowing them to roll forwards or backwards.Pause for a count at the top of the rep. You can accentuate the muscle contraction by “pulling your collarbones up towards your ears and slightly bending your elbows,” says Brown.Slowly lower your shoulders with control to return to the starting position. Be sure to lower the weights all the way down until you feel a stretch in your upper traps. That’s one rep.Trainer tip: “One of the biggest mistakes people make with training their traps—and with the shrug in particular—is they try to use too much weight, and so their shoulders don’t get as high as they theoretically could,” says Carlson. “Instead, start with a lower weight and aim for as much range of motion as possible at the top of the movement.”Scapula Retraction“This second exercise is for the fibers in the mid and lower trap,” which are going to help add shoulder stability and protection for your posture, Carlson says. While the name might sound new to even the most seasoned lifters, the setup will be very familiar. “You can do this one as if you were about to perform a seated row at the cable station,” Carlson says. “Except, instead of doing a row and driving your elbows all the way back, you’re actually going to keep your elbows totally straight, and you’re just going to pull your shoulder blades back.” Similar to a regular seated row, you can also do this one on the machine row (the kind you’ll find on the gym floor, made by a brand like Hammer Strength or Matrix—not a rowing machine).How to do it:Find the seated cable row (depending on your gym, this might be connected to a cable station) and attach the narrow, neutral-grip attachment to the cable.Sit down on the bench, reach forward to grab the handle attachment with both hands, and sit up straight with your arms extended out in front of you. Without rounding your upper back, allow the weight to pull your arms forward until you feel a stretch behind your shoulder blades. This is your starting position.Keeping your arms completely straight, draw your shoulder blades together to pull the weight toward you. “A great cue here would be, if you had someone’s finger in the middle of your back, touching your spine, could you pull your shoulders back and pinch their finger?” Carlson says.Pause for a count at the peak of the contraction, then slowly release your shoulders and allow your arms to return to the starting position. That’s one rep.Trainer Tip: “It’s just a subtle movement where you’re pinching the shoulder blades back, pausing, and then letting them roll forward again,” Carlson says. “Focus on keeping your torso totally still. If your torso is not moving forward or backward, and only your shoulder blades are retracting and stretching, then you’re probably doing it right.”Farmer’s Carry“We know from research that stretching a muscle under load is really beneficial to hypertrophy,” says Brown. (A 2025 study review published in the journal Sports Medicine and Health Science found that training a muscle in a stretched, or lengthened, position can increase growth.) “So if I were to add one more exercise at the end, I quite like loaded carries—like a farmer’s carry.” Similar to shrugs, the farmer’s carry is another exercise that you really don’t need special equipment to perform. “Just carrying heavy things with straight arms is going to build the traps, because they’re stretched and they’re loaded,” says Brown. “If you look at a lot of powerlifters and strongmen, they all have huge traps, and that’s why.”How to do it:Bring a pair of dumbbells or kettlebells over to an area where you can walk in a straight line for about 50 feet. (You can get creative here. For instance, if you have only half this distance to play with, you can do two laps.)Pick up the weights, one in each hand, and stand tall with your arms hanging straight at your sides. This is your starting position.Maintaining good posture, and avoiding shrugging your shoulders up to your ears, walk slowly and with control in a straight line.Once you’ve covered the desired distance, carefully set the weights back down on the ground. That’s one set.Trainer Tip: “You want to try and keep your shoulders down and keep your chest up so that you’re getting that full stretch,” Brown says. “Walking with a heavy pair of kettlebells or dumbbells—and a nice, tall posture—is going to put the traps under a lot of load.”