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How do I activate my lower / middle traps?

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Dan_00ryan

New Member
Feb 11, 2020
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A couple years back I dislocated my shoulder at the bottom of a pull-up and physical therapists said it was a lack of lower / mid trap development. I’m back in the gym now finally (2 months in) and still have the problem. I’ve always struggled with activation of my entire back, I focused primarily on my lats. Consequently when I try lower / mid trap exercises I find I’m engaging the lats and not my traps as I should be. If I try to bring my scaps back or engage the traps my lats fire.

I’ve tried using the pull down machine and what I end up doing is arching my back and the top of my lower back muscles fire. If I tighten my core I don’t feel anything in my back.

What can I do to fix this?

TIA


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searay

VIP Member
Dec 20, 2017
853
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When you do your shrugs you need to bend forward slightly with knees bent, keep elbows close to side, and instead of pulling straight up with straight arms, pull your elbows up. You WILL feel your lower traps or your still doing it wrong. Its pretty much like doing rows bending half as much as you would doing heavy rows. My gym has a hand made piece of equipment that you can do heavy shrugs on and is great for working lower traps also due to the handle being it the shape of a bicycle handle so your palms are facing your sides by your sides.
 
Bigtex

Bigtex

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Aug 14, 2012
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A couple years back I dislocated my shoulder at the bottom of a pull-up and physical therapists said it was a lack of lower / mid trap development. I’m back in the gym now finally (2 months in) and still have the problem. I’ve always struggled with activation of my entire back, I focused primarily on my lats. Consequently when I try lower / mid trap exercises I find I’m engaging the lats and not my traps as I should be. If I try to bring my scaps back or engage the traps my lats fire.

I’ve tried using the pull down machine and what I end up doing is arching my back and the top of my lower back muscles fire. If I tighten my core I don’t feel anything in my back.

What can I do to fix this?

TIA


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk



Here is a great resource for trying to figure this out.

https://exrx.net/Muscles/TrapeziusMiddle

Anytime you want to find out how a muscle works, look at the direction the fibers go. They contract in this direction. So the middle fibers are responsible for adduction, elevation and upward rotation of the scapula. Any exercise that you do for the upper back will hit the middle fibers. Pulls to that specific area will help.

https://exrx.net/Lists/ExList/BackWt#MiddleTrap
 
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