Barbell Shrug Behind The Back

Back · Barbell

How to do it

Stand with feet at shoulder width and the barbell **behind** your body, overhand grip slightly wider than your shoulders. Lift your shoulders straight towards your ears and hold for a second at the top; lower slowly until you feel the traps stretch. Behind the back, the bar cannot drift away from you, so the traps work with the shoulder slightly further back and you feel it more in the middle. The classic mistake is rolling the shoulders in circles: up and down only, never rotate under load.

Variants

The drawing shows one way of doing it, and the technique above describes that one. Almost every exercise has variants — standing or seated, the grip, the bench angle — and is still the same exercise: if you do it another way, write it in the exercise note and you will have it every time you train it.

Also works: Forearms

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