Cable Shrugs

Back · Cable

How to do it

Grab a bar attached to a low pulley, overhand and at shoulder width. Stand close to the pulley with your arms straight in front of you and your back tall. Lift your shoulders towards your ears, hold the squeeze for a second and lower slowly until you feel the stretch. Unlike dumbbells, the cable pulls on a diagonal and keeps tension at the top too, which is where a normal shrug rests. The classic mistake is bouncing with the knees: if the knees move, the traps have stopped doing the work.

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.

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